Down But Not Out

 I hurt my leg last Friday.

I did it bowling. 

Yes it hurts. 

For a while this past week I felt that I should get those three phrases printed on a T-shirt for me to wear in order to some of the caring but institutionally redundant questions about the brace on my left knee. The concern was legitimate, but over the course of a trip down a hallway I would be asked a dozen different times by a dozen different people, old and young about the limp I was showing as I hobbled from place to place. Several times, because of the attention span of your standard elementary school age child, I would answer the same questions from one bright upturned face just steps away from where I had given the exact same answers. 

All of which speaks to the relative excitement generated by the smallest tweak in Elementary School Reality. Most often this is found in the reactions students have to haircuts. Over the weekend someone shows up with bangs, or a fade, it's big news. And seemingly everlasting torment for the child who was simply trying to improve their personal grooming. 

As for my knee, it's kind of an old story. It's the same one that I wrecked nearly forty years ago by jumping out of a swing. That cautionary tale was apparently not enough to get me to consider just how vigorous I needed to be when it came to our faculty bowling night. When I woke up the morning after, the stabbing pain I felt around my tibial plateau was a reminiscence I did not need. Nevertheless,  I persevered. I went to school, but left for an hour to go see a doctor. 

Put through my paces over the course of a brief but thorough examination, it was determined that I had a sprain. No permanent damage. Just a reminder of that once upon a time when I thought I was indestructible. 

I'm not. And now I'm paying the price for believing that I was. 

Every time I limp down the hall.