Oh, My Aching Stars

(Pre-script: This post just might maybe in some way heal you if you listen to it while listening to the song,"My Name Is Luca," #13 on the playlist, in the background. So please go turn it on now, and I'll wait here for you to come back and resume reading.) (...still waiting...)

The only bone I ever broke was in my pinkie toe when I was 18. Until then, I used to brag that the fact that I had never broken a bone made me more Christ like, in stature at least, if not in character. Word to the wise: If you have never broken a bone, do not start bragging about it now. But like I said, I was only 18, I had only ever been 18 or younger, so I wasn't very mature, either. I am still not very mature, but now I have to come up with new excuses for my immaturity.

Ahem.
Actually, I am not sure that I broke the toe, I just was really sure it was broken when I couldn't move it, it swelled, the whole foot bruised up horribly, and I had an awkward, embarrassing limp for a week. The alleged toe breakage occurred when I was running to answer the phone in socks or barefooted, I forget which, and I was on a good direct route to the phone, which was hanging on the wall, I could see it there, my focus was clear, and nothing, NOTHING was going to get between me and my determination. I did get it off of the hook, I did, but not before slamming my pinkie into the solid wood of a kitchen chair leg. In that instant, I knew that whoever had fashioned that particular chair leg had done an excellent, fine job.

Blink, blink.

Oh my aching stars. Yowza.

I remember that I instantly fell to the floor, phone barely in my hand, said "hello" into the receiver, heard my younger brother say something like "is Dad there," and my only response was to drop the phone, call out "Dad! It's for you!" before hobble crawling to my bedroom to wait for the pain to subside. It did not subside. I turned my 6 CD changer on Shuffle mode, to distract myself and chill out, and also because at 18, that was just what I did at 4:30pm on a Sunday afternoon. The pain did not subside. This was my first clue that something might be broken. So I crab crawled my way out of the bedroom and declared to anyone in the house who might be listening, "I think I broke my toe." this was met by the typical skepticism of my know it all oldest brother, who responded thusly: "No, you did not break your toe." Years of dumb boy wrestling stunts and stupid kid stunts mixed with school team sports had rendered him a medical expert. He was practically ready for his residency. Apparently one of the rules of medical expertise is that when your sister says "I think I broke my toe," or "I think that I sprained my wrist," or "I think that I might maybe in any form or fashion have injured myself," the accurate response is always, always to instantly declare that No, no your sister is not in any way injured, she has no idea what real pain is, either. She obviously just wants to be like her brother, her big brother, who has broken several bones and sprained and torn himself in many places, then gone back for a second helping of pain, all for the sheer love of the game. Never mind the fact that he never actually in any way examines sister in the area where she says she is hurt. Any pain she feels is psychosomatic. End of story.

Well, Maybe so.

But all I know is that when I finally had the courage to look down at my toe, it looked about less than one inch long. This was shocking because it felt about 258 feet long. Who would have ever thought it possible to feel the pain of the entire world compacted into such a tiny space on your body. Friends, I am here to tell it is possible.

It is also possible for medication to ease the pain after about 15-30 minutes, just like it says on the bottle, and especially if you double up on the dose when it does not instantly remove the pain the exact instant you swallow the pill. I am not going to mention which brand of pain medication I took for fear that the drug companies will sue me for either gross abuse of their product or for the royalties of printing their name here. I am sure that the 9 people who read this every day would drum up enough business that it would make a difference in their sales. But that's not really my job, anyway.

It is also possible that the toe was not actually broken, since I never had it x-rayed. However, I can honestly testify that for years after the injury, that particular pinkie toe would ache on cloudy days or just before it was about to rain.

You'll just have to take my word for it, Gosh!

Time heals a lot of things.

Just because something hurts doesn't mean it's broken, needs to be fixed, or that there is in any way anything wrong with it. It does not necessarily mean that there is anything wrong with you. It might just maybe mean that everything in you is working properly, as it was meant to function, and your body, mind, heart, spirit, and soul were just checking in.

The part that hurts might could be the healthiest part of you.

Think about it, peeps.

Think hard; do not be hardly thinking.

-XOXO,