***
Three weeks ago, I met a guy named P on Bourbon Street, and we spent thirteen hours together wandering the quarter and getting to know one another, and I couldn't believe my luck, meeting a guy like that. We've managed to keep up texting since then, but real conversation has eluded us. When he calls, the dialogue is short. When I call, I get voicemail. I heard a lot less from him this week. He says it was the week from hell at work. He still wants me to visit, he says, but I need to be able to walk without crutches first, and I don't know when that will be. So, the visit keeps getting pushed back, and the messages get fewer and farther between. This weekend, we almost haven't talked at all. So who knows.
Two weeks ago, I sprained my ankle. I jumped up to block a ball, and when I came down, the guy's foot was underneath mine. My ankle rolled, and it felt like my leg had snapped in half. There was a lot of shrieking and crying (all me), and there were a lot of people standing around uncomfortably, unsure of what to do with tears that loud, that pained. The ER visit only took an hour in sum, but the two weeks since have been hard. There has been a lot of frustration, and there have been a lot of tears, and I have fallen multiple times. But people have been wonderful, and I'm becoming better at accepting help every day. I hate the fact that I can't get around on my own, that I can't play sports or run or even get to another room without crutches, but I'm grateful that I can finally see some of the bones and veins in my foot again. The swelling is finally going down, and I'm hoping and praying that means I'll be healed enough to walk soon.
A week ago, I rented a knee scooter from a medical supply company in Jefferson, and I scootered my way through the Mardi Gras weekend. My right thigh was crazy sore on Monday and is now twice its original size, but my heart is a little fuller, too. People are notorious at Mardi Gras for being territorial and unmoving, but crowds opened seamlessly when I needed to walk through, and everyone had a story for me about the time they got injured and had to use crutches or a knee scooter. I was a "trooper," they said time and time again. A police officer even let us follow the Thoth parade, so we could get to a friend's house more easily. Students shouted hello to me from the sidewalk. A teenage girl told me she liked my hair. And throughout the weekend, I kept thinking to myself, What an amazing place this is. Where else can you go to a jazz mass and then step outside and spent seven hours in the sun catching beads with friends and getting to know the strangers around you?
Four days ago, I gave up on talking exclusively to P, who'd been mostly unresponsive during the week, and set up two Tinder dates. I had coffee with a bashful school psychologist in town for a conference. I had sushi with a local engineer who made me laugh for two hours. The psychologist was a one-time thing (he was into it, I wasn't), but the engineer called me the next day and we talked on the phone for thirty minutes about everything from potentially-explosive scented candles to sailboats. I'm not sure when, but I think I'll see him again. And while I'm slightly uncomfortable with "seeing" more than one person at a time, it might be good for me. It might give me some perspective.
Yesterday, I finished the first draft of my novel. I had been putting off writing the last chapter for more than a week, unsure of how the story should end, but after talking to my therapist on Wednesday and to the school psychologist about his grandparents on Thursday, and reading the perfect quote about love and death in a novel on Friday, I knew what needed to happen. So, it's done. I don't really know what to do now, but I know I have a lot of work ahead of me.
Today, I struggled up the steps to the choir loft. I struggled around the grocery store on a poorly-engineered electric scooter. I struggled with getting my bags into the house (one broke on the way up). I struggled with finding exercises that didn't put too much stress on my ankle but that would keep me in shape. I struggled with writing this post (this is start-from-scratch draft #3).
But tonight, I have dinner planned with my family who loves me, and I'll come home to lay in bed with a cat who loves me, and I'll get ready for another day of work with students who love me. And as frustrating as the ankle is and as confusing as the long distance to California thing can be, I'll be alright. Because every day is just another day. And there are a whole lot of people who love me.
