Break a Leg

Once, when I was about 13, I broke my leg in a motorcycle accident. My dad picked me up and carried me into the house, shushing my howls all the way there. He wasn’t convinced I needed to go to hospital, but after conferring with Marty (my stepmom, his wife and a nurse by trade), he gave in. A few minutes later he packed me into his truck, handed me a Louis L’Amour book, and told me that I could cry for a few more minutes, but that he didn’t want to hear a peep out of me once we got into the hospital. He said that I’d just embarrass myself in front of all the pretty nurses.

At the time, I believed I was in a type of pain that no human had ever experienced before. I seriously doubted that I would ever, under any circumstances or amount of time, quit crying. Still, as we neared the hospital, my dad told me again that I needed to quit crying. It was not spoken as a request (my dad was never really a source of sympathy – I’m a terrible one myself). It didn’t sound like I had a choice, and although I was in intense pain, I didn’t so much as whimper when we entered the emergency room.

Once we got inside, the nurses gushed about how they couldn’t believe “tough” I was (suckers). I’m sure they do this with every injured kid, but I’m still convinced that I tricked them into thinking that I was impervious to pain. When a particularly young and pretty nurse commented on my toughness, I looked up into my dad’s eyes in time to see him give me a little wink. After that, I felt like my dad and I were in some kind of secret “tough guy” club. I always thought of him as the toughest guy I knew. I tried not to flinch when they stitched up the cuts on my leg, or when they set my broken ankle. Like every kid, I wanted my father’s approval.

The point of this post isn’t a “how to be a big macho man” piece or anything. I actually would be a terrible choice to write a post like that. My dad would be better. The point I’d like to make is that you can overcome the things that hurt in your life. You might need someone there to tell you why you shouldn’t cry, why you have to pick yourself up when things start to feel to hard. And to be honest, you won’t always have someone there to carry you. All of your problems aren’t as easy to fix as a broken leg. “Stay off it for six weeks and then come in for another x-ray.” If only.

How do you deal with the things that bring you down? Thanks for reading.