Before we get to this, let's put out what we've all been thinking... there are some God damn Adventure Bowl posts missing. Let's review. Two weeks ago, I pulled "Go to Beer Making Class" which was f'ing awesome. Beer! You can make your own! In a bucket! Your neighbors will love you! And this week... drum roll: "Get A Nose Ring." (A cute, sexy one, not one you can be pulled around by, please.) Yeah, who snuck that in? Who snuck that in three days before I go home? I have never NEVER welched on an adventure. But guys... my mother will stroke out. There's a big family party. She will lose her shit. Which is probably why I should do it.
Shizzzz. I don't know. I WOULD LIKE A VOTE IN THE COMMENTS SECTION: Do I do it or not? Weighing - do I honor the promise to myself and you guys or consider that my Mom will lose her innards at a family party? You decide.
Alright, stay tuned for that. But in the meantime, I wrote this. It's a two parter, but I know you can handle it. You're strong like that.
I was going for a run the other day and it was hot as balls outside so I grab for a visor and go to put it on and then, there I see: it's splattered in blood.
And I kind of gasp and have this sickening memory all at the same time. That was the visor I was wearing the day I fell down a 70 foot hill in my neighborhood. A retaining wall broke my fall when I smashed my head against it and knocked me unconscious and I was lucky enough that a woman walking her baby found me. She called 911. She gave them the wrong address. She told them she thought I was dead. She told me when she saw me, a week later, still in a hospital gown, my head partly shaved (not that you could tell, I have so much god damn hair), staples in skull, arm in a giant brace, that she thought I was dead.
I started shaking. I realized that she was just as traumatized by what she saw, as I was about what happened. She didn't know that she should probably NOT tell me that. I think when you're in that kind of shock, words don't go through the brain, they just come out.
So there was the visor. The visor was in a clear plastic bag that the firemen had turned into the hospital, along with the fire chief's business card. The hospital gave it to me when I left. Technically, not when I left. I snuck out of the hospital in my gown and took my own clear plastic bag, but that is another story.
I had put the plastic bag beside my bed. I don't know why. I don't know why I didn't throw it out or treat the visor with some "Spray & Wash" and put it in the damn washer and dryer instead of keeping it like some kind of police evidence bag right beside my bed.
Then I piled it high with magazines. So I wouldn't have to look at it. I had taken the fire chief's business card out and called and asked what kind of cup cakes they wanted, the firemen. You know, for saving my life and everything. Turns out, they like every kind. I thought bringing them over would bring some kind of closure or goodness or something but instead I just started getting that feeling where I am definitely, definitely going to cry and I can't have anyone see that so I just ran in and dropped them off.
By the door.
My theory is the pug pulled that visor out of that clear plastic bag. Her name is Ruby, I adopted her just before I fell. Because of all the time I spent in bed after the accident and then after the surgery, we are stupidly bonded. If I'm in the shower, she is on the shower mat. If I am making breakfast, she is on half on my feet, half on the kitchen floor. I notice, if I am gone, when I come back, a shirt of mine will be pulled out for her to lay on, a pile of socks are in her bed.
A visor.
And weirdly, because I bought three like it, it didn't strike me as odd to find it on the floor of the bedroom and put it by the door so I could easily grab it.
Until I did and until I saw all that blood and then I can see them cutting me out of my shirt and a team of eight ER docs and nurses around me and I AM SCREAMING this completely, not only unconscious scream, but this noise I didn't even know that I could make. Have you ever dislocated your shoulder? Don't. Don't ever do that. It hurts, especially if, when they are putting it back in, they are manipulating a bone that you have also broken.
I can't remember any of the doctors there. I know one said to me, "I can give you a shot for the pain before we pop your shoulder in but it's going to take a couple of minutes for it to kick in--" "No! Just, do it, just do it now!" I couldn't last, not another three seconds. There were so many people around me. Just like on TV. And then it was back in.
I can remember that I felt instant relief even as I was in an excruciating about of pain. I still had broken bones no one knew I had, was bleeding from the elbow and head (they could not tell because of said, massive amounts of wavy hair).
But I'm getting off track. Yes, I do want to tell you what a bad ass I am for getting staples in my head without anesthesia, but really, getting off track. Or how I had to ask for my own head CT because the doctors didn't know I had hit my head. The firemen found me unconscious... Is that not in some kind of report or something?
But I'm getting off track.
The point is, I'm only at a level of honesty of about 9. I don't talk about that accident. Or here when I am talking about it, I can talk about the facts. I can lay them out all neat and orderly. I would make an excellent witness. But emotionally, I can not really go there. Honesty, 9.
I don't know. It might be a 6.
If you are a private (secretive) person, time is on your side. People will forget to ask you about things that are painful. Better yet, you will learn how to tell the funniest, most succinct story of said accident. You will boil it down to the highlights where everything you say will get a laugh and you can walk away with no one being the wiser. (And you will feel a little superior, just a little smug, as you get away with it, yet again.)
The accident has lead to the deepest of deep soul searching. Currently, I am in a chess game with myself - two opposite sides of me vying to make the winning move of my life. This is all relevant to the fact that, I'm going back home this week.
I will post the rest of the story on Tuesday... it's getting not only long... but so off track.
Yes, I go home on Tuesday night, back East, with a lot churning around in this brain here. My last trip, just months ago, the new information of my cousin's cancer, had me running to Brooklyn to put money down on an apartment, so determined with new revelations about life, and how I was so dissatisfied with how I was living it, that I was ready to ship all my things from Los Angeles to New York if I could.
Some deeper breathing, and a soul slap from my sister about what a "God damn idiot" I was being to try and make all these decisions in a really emotional moment, pushed me to reboot this blog in hopes that if I force myself to write, and I force myself out of my comfort zone (adventures) then I will put myself in the strongest, most clear headed place for decision making.
I guess I'm just turning a lot over. Going back East puts me square back to face all the feelings I had when I found out that my cousin has cancer two months ago. But also, finding that visor just kind of shook me up... another reminder about how fragile life is. Something... that to make the decisions, I need to make, I need in the forefront of my mind, yet the memories are all twisted up and painful.
Oh God Lord, I can barely even stand to be thinking this heavy. Okay, let's all remember on the upside, going back home - nephews will be hugged and tickled and kissed; clam bakes will be had, Wing Night - where inexplicably every cousin of mine down by the beach all show up to the same bar - will be happening. Drinks on the deck, determination to pool crash the snobby beach club's pool down the street - that is all happening. Super soakers will be filled with water, water balloons will be launched, telling politically incorrect bedtime stories to my nephews as my sister laughs but shoots me a look that says, "Please, don't do that" - that will be happening. Brooklyn, bands, high school friends, all of it, jam crammed into a very short amount of time.
But also, this turning over of my future... I'll be thinking of that too.
***
