Bawdy Language

I grew up in a house without a full-length mirror. It was important to be smart. It was important to be creative. It was not important to be popular or pretty or to put any sort of effort into your appearance. I still have to force myself to try on clothing before purchasing it. I only started wearing mascara a few years ago. I wasn’t a tomboy, but we listened to ‘Free To Be, You And Me’ a lot in my home.

That said, even though I wasn’t a tomboy or jock, I did join the rugby team the year I was at Dal, with the hopes of making friends, even though my joints were sort of in tatters from years of jazz dance in cheap shoes. What I mean to say here is that I joined because I wanted to get invited to parties where there would be male rugby players. And while I’m telling the truth, I should confess that I never played a game, only practicing with the team for a couple of weeks before getting so sick that I had to stay home for 5 days.

The first day I felt well enough to leave the house, I went for a very long walk in the rain. When I got home, while changing out of my wet jeans, I realized that I was quite stiff and decided to stretch. I lunged over my left leg, rolled my head around in a circle to stretch out my neck. That’s when I saw it in the mirror. I was boarding with a family at the time, staying in their guest room. The guest room had a full-length mirror, and there it was. My ass. In the mirror.

I was 21 years old, and I’d never seen my own ass.

I was wearing gigantic purple underpants (bloomers, nearly), but that did not stop me from—head swiveled around 180º—grinding and shaking my rump, marveling at its existence, not to mention the fact that it was ATTACHED TO MY BODY. Have you ever seen an infant who is completely mesmerized by their own hands? Like that.

I must have kept at it for a good 5-10 minutes. Until, on the other side of the room, the phone rang. I turned my head to face the ringing, my weight shifted slightly, and…

I heard a loud snap.

I dislocated my knee.

I lay on the floor for hours, waiting for someone to come home, and when they did, they found me helpless in giant purple underpants. Not my finest moment.

When you injure your knee, they ask a lot of questions at the hospital. This is so they can anticipate what sort of damage you’ve inflicted. As they cut me out of my overalls (my knee had swollen considerably, particularly after I was dressed and ‘mobile’. and yes. overalls. it was the 90s.) and put me in a cast, I was forced to repeat the story several times. Several times more than I suspect was medically necessary. Again, not my finest moment.

I still don’t have a full-length mirror, and sometimes leave the house completely inappropriately dressed (see: the great shirt vs. dress battles of 2010). Sometimes, like today, I feel like I should make more of an effort where my appearance is concerned. And then I remember my knee and worry that I might wind up with a bone break or worse if I tried to use tinted moisturizer or a hair styling tool.

Happy New Year, everyone. Here's to keeping it real while making a whole lot more carefully considered bad decisions. Here's to hot meals burning the roof of your mouth, and cold hands freezing the small of your back. Here's to being okay with being happy without fretting too much about the sadness that might be around the bend. Here's to being okay with being sad, so long as you're willing to let people try to cheer you up. Here's to comfort wherever and whenever we can find it, no matter how fleeting.