and then i heard a crack

That's my leg there. It is encased in an air boot, the CAM Walker II to be specific. It's not quite ready for action with the boot alone; so, it is assisted by crutches.

I've been a drunken fool on a few occasions. December 21st was one of them. I was drinking from the bad place -- you know, drowning the sorrows that nip at the edge of contentment -- and drinking too much, but having a good time. Getting up to dance (on a concrete dance floor) seemed like a fine idea. The music was either fast, slow, or something in between. That's how little recollection I have. I recall dancing, laughing, hanging on to The Bubba, hitting the concrete: head, then ankle. The rest is like a scene from childhood. It's impossible to know how much I really remember or how much I think I remember because I was told. My memory kicks in at the moment of lying on the floor at the foot of my bed with a towel on my head and a bag of frozen string beans on my ankle. Two days later, when the ankle was still swollen and walking produced a popping sound inside my head and the sensation that my foot was no longer connected to my body, Bubs drove me to the emergency room.

Turns out I'd broken my fibula.

Anatomy is one of those subjects I think I know enough about because I studied it in 8th grade. Fibula? Tibula? Oh, tibia. Okay. I broke my fibula, which is the calf bone and smaller than the tibia, which is the shin bone. This means I am in luck, because the tibia is the weight-bearing bone while the fibula is important but cute, kind of like a girl riding on the back of a motorcycle.

All those truisms you hear and go around absently repeating: Things could always be worse. Yes, they could. For having broken my leg my situation looks worse than it was when I only had the troubles I was trying to drink away. But my spirit, my spirit is higher. Because things could always be worse. I don't have to wear a hard cast. I don't have to sleep in the CAM Walker if I don't want to. I can submerge my entire person in water. I don't have to -- heaven forfend -- have surgery.

A few months ago I sassily quit my job. I helped find and interview and hire my replacement. I offered to stick around to train him for January, "But NOT February," I announced, because I was going to be off to more important and worthy-of-a-great-talent-like-me places. Welp. Even though my replacement started today I am being allowed to stick around as long as I need to. I humbly offered to make myself useful and teach online classes and have been assigned to do so. This means money, health insurance, sanity.

Things, they could always be worse you know.

I'm one to look for the reason in things. When I don't find it, I figure I haven't looked hard enough. I don't know exactly why I broke my leg (in the marrow of spirit, not the marrow of bone, kind of way), but there are things I do see. I see how fast I was moving before. Certain people would read these words and laugh. To them, I might appear to be stuck. But the wheels inside they grind constantly. Though they grind heavy, they grind fast. I talk so fast. I worry so much. I rush, rush, rush to meet the expectations I imagine people have of me. I am living in a hard situation. People ask me when I am going to leave it. I say, Yesterday! Tomorrow! I'm walking out the door right now! Off I go! Eat my dust! Are you eating it? Because I am on the move! I say what I think will make sense. But I have no desire to catapult myself out into the cold. A warm situation is brewing for me. Warm and wonderful and home. It will unfold in time and sooner rather than later (I know this because I have a hand in it), and in the meantime, I am here. Now, with this busted bone, I am really here. I am forced to own that. I am forced to slow the grinding wheels and to accept and find comfort in where I am. This sits quite well with me, because I know that things could always be worse.