There’s this quiet moment in your life when you know your life as you know it has indeed changed. Everything just feels different. Not bad, just different. After all, the familiar can be as insidious as the unknown. So when you feel your world, your colors and you words are bit more purple, just know you’re about to turn a curve. But with today’s noise it’s sometimes hard to detect that chicane. Sometimes something forces you to shut up and listen.
In my case my life changed when I broke my foot three weeks ago. I was walking down Central in Hong Kong in front of H&M. It remains a mystery whether this was a sign meant to put a sharp pause in my self-destructive addiction to discount fashion.
I traipsed on my paper-thin Prada flats that gave my foot the same support as, say, a sheet of tissue, when an uneven crack on the sidewalk caused me to jam my foot hard. As in really hard. Those flats, a vestige from my obsession with The Black Swan, caused me to be a bale-rina.
Anyway, as I hobbled back home I chanted to myself that it was just a sprain. I mean, I hike mountains, dance in seven-inch heels and stub my toes on a daily basis. How can a sidewalk crack bring me down?
Well, I guess this was my dark horse moment.
I went to the doctor after having the most painful foot massage as I hoped to alleviate the sprain, which I convinced myself it was. It was x-rayed and, as the doc said in his most blasé voice, it was a clean break.
He could have well been telling me what I should be doing. My first thought was, How am I going to text and cross the street now? Besides it being illegal, it was also the cause of my foot injury. But who really has time to stop and answer all your BBMs in a stationary position. I have a co-dependent relationship with my BlackBerry. I’m always making excuses for it.
I write this with my injured foot elevated by five pillows. I learned that I won’t be able to walk for six months. No trips, no beaches, no heels. It’s been three weeks and I already feel like an old woman left alone with her thoughts. My left leg has atrophied and is now wiggling freely in the cast that once bound it so tightly.
It truly is the year of the rabbit because I hop on one leg. I still have not mastered my crutches. My knee looks like Jackson Pollock haunted them with his paintbrush as it is splattered with furious shades of blue and purple.
My foot was telling me something. And saying it with much force. It was telling me to stop. We’re doing all these things but really, where are we going? I was busy for the sake of being busy. My ADD had me doing five things at a time. I was burning out without much of a fire in my belly.
The burnout. Such a 30’s cliché. But when you look at it, it’s actually a pandemic.
It’s not just me. In two weeks one of my good friends will be taking a break from her decade-long career as a high-profile fashion designer. She has seven lines under her belt. She had three children and lives away from the city. I think she felt that “time to stop” moment when she dropped her cell phone in the toilet because was busy texting and tending to her kids at the same time.
It seems that cell phones have that cathartic effect.
The pressure to succeed whether as a professional or as a housewife is great — look at Martha Stewart who stands for both! It’s easy to feel inadequate.
I am 31, like my Dalai Lama du jour, Kim Kardashian, who also thought that by 30 she would have three kids by now. Instead she’s exhausted, and I’m exhausted. I’m starting a new career and I still can’t manage to fix my hair.
I have a blessed career writing, designing and later taking a very early and long sabbatical. I burnt out at 27. I’ve never been the same since. I used to be the girl who could do it all. Now, I never recharge the same way I used to before.
I think shifting to 30 also added extra pressure. I needed to get both my personal and professional life in tune.
Having this cast forces me to be deliberate in every action. A trip to the bathroom is given substantial consideration as well as trips to the kitchen for midnight snacks. I count my steps and have slowed down in the most literal and physical manner.
Yet, in the past three weeks, being a cripple, I was able to do more work, reading and hairstyling. I was able to appreciate taking care of myself more and respect my responsibilities.
It makes you look at the world differently. You see how handicap unfriendly the Philippines is. It makes you grateful for every shower you take that spares your skull from being bashed on the bathroom tile. It makes you grateful that things could be worse.
I was aware of everything I was doing and when I did it I did it with effort. This cast has prevented me from doing all the toxic things that might have left me bankrupt and overfed. No malls, no addictive must-buy Firma afternoons, no overpriced meals in restaurants and no useless fashion accessories following the wake of an emotional shopping spree.
I am left with the basics. If I need to see friends it must be for a reason as wheelchairs are still somewhat of a cruel novelty for me.
I am somewhat more agile now, using my right foot. I’m getting used to it but then I remember it’s six more months of this and I’m crestfallen once again.
Life changed while I was on this cast. Because I was not in a hurry or doing five things at the same time I was able to savor the everyday changes of life.
I guess this is what they also mean when they say, “Break a leg.”