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.