I was like “can’t wait to enjoy the rest of the summer” ankle was like “wanna bet?”

i found a bunch of dead crabs on the last moon day of Cancer season

I am wearing the robe with pink and mint and blue flowers over a black background. My mom wore it when I was little. She gave it to me one summer.

I reach out to hug you like a child. I haven’t washed my hair or showered in days. I’m in the kitchen at the table, robe is open so when I spill my coffee it splatters onto my stomach. On Friday I broke my ankle.

I have never had a broken bone but I am no stranger to injury. In early 2022 I got tendinitis in my dominant hand and could not use it for almost six months. In late 2022 I was bedridden with a mystery illness for the whole winter. In early 2023 I injured my knee so badly I could barely walk. In 2024 I got a concussion that affected me for a couple of months.

If I’m being very honest it all feels a little “one thing after the other” and though each time I am injured I learn to slow down, I cannot help but wonder if I’m really learning the lesson. Because if I was learning and integrating surely another injury wouldn’t be necessary right? My mom said “Maybe this happened for a reason, maybe it happened for a good reason, maybe to make you slow down more, I don’t know.” I don’t know either, but I everything I do know leads me to think she is right.

I’m just grateful I have someone who is down to make me pasta.

“I feel like I already learned slowing down,” I tell my friend who deals with chronic pain, “I feel a bit annoyed at the universe but also maybe like I haven’t actually slowed down that much each time the lesson has come up.” She says learning to slow down has taken her a lifetime and that it gets easier as you get older. She says I will have an easier time in about 30 years.

A week ago I was at the beach.

More than anything I am feeling sadness. My ego is totally horrified by the idea that now I need help preparing food and coffee and carrying things from room to room. I find myself not wanting to surrender to this experience at all. In some moments I feel like maybe if I get mad enough the universe will change its mind, I think this is an example of me being a bit of a control freak.

It is not lost on me that we have just entered Leo season. My birthday is in less than a week. Usually Leo season is fun for me. Ever since I was little I loved my birthday because it felt like the one day of the year I could embody my Leo light and allow myself to be the center of attention without worrying about being annoying. Now I am the center of attention but in a very different way. Everyone around me feels very bad for me and wants to help. I am trying so hard to graciously receive this help. I tend to make these things about slowing down but I think they are also about allowing myself to receive care.

I become disappointed in myself when I get frustrated. I don’t want to let this make me an angry or bitter person. I know I am becoming angry because I am resisting the experience. I am often not so compassionate for how I’m feeling, telling myself to just shut up and find a way to relax whenever I begin to complain. Complaining feels like a bratty thing to do, whereas I want to be brave. Once, years ago, I got hit by a motorcycle while I was on vacation. I was totally mangled and lucky to be alive and when I went to the hospital I was miraculously free of broken bones. Despite this I could barely walk, I was covered in scraped and bruises, including one on the side of my face that joined with a black eye. But I didn’t let it stop me. I still walked (limped) around and had a smile on my face the whole time. I had the best attitude because while others saw me as having experienced this unfortunate thing I actually felt very lucky because I knew things could’ve been much worse. I was grateful to be alive and so there was no part of me that wanted to complain.

This injury was not life threatening. I broke my ankle while filming a TikTok for work. I cannot say that I’m lucky to be alive because this is not something that should be dangerous. I guess I should be grateful that the break is not worse, that it does not hurt more, that I do not live alone, that I have support. Technically it is always a good time to be grateful to be alive. Surely I should be able to find a taste for that even though the accident wasn’t something I survived miraculously?

This time last year my cousin shared her location with me. During that time it was important that I had access to it. She still shares it with me. Now it’s still important I guess but less urgent. We haven’t talked in a while. Sometimes, somewhat often, I pull it up. I watch her go from home to work. Sometimes she goes somewhere I don’t recognize. Recently she was at an emergency room so I texted her but I didn’t say why because I didn’t want her to think I was being weird and turn the location off.

Everything is slower now. Going down the hall takes a couple of minutes when before it took maybe 30 seconds. Saturday is my birthday. I will enter the last year of my 20s. I will reach this milestone hobbling on crutches. On Friday night I literally crawled, my hands and knees on the hard wood floor, to get to the bathroom. For a whole 24 hours I hopped to get everywhere, leaving my non-injured leg weak and sore. Even now with the crutches it still must lift and lower my body multiple times a day. Did you know using crutches uses like 50-70% more energy than just walking normally? I did not train for this.

Sometimes my toes tingle a little and I get scared that something is terribly wrong. I imagine the broken bones inside and it makes me squeamish. I find myself more thankful than ever for skin, for covering the whole mess so I don’t have to see it.

Once my friend told me humans are wired, evolved, to panic at the sight of blood. The red tells the brain to pay attention, it is supposed to be alarming so that we do not ignore it. She said that’s why we should be a bit nicer to men for getting spooked by periods. She said it’s natural for them to panic when seeing blood come out of someone’s body, that the same mechanism would cause them to wrap up a wound or rush someone to a hospital.