The days don’t need counting, they know they’re there.

If at one point my leg was enraged, it’s now pathetic and sad. It’s a shabby lean-to with a tired resident who wants more than it can offer. But maybe my leg is my resident; at the moment it feels the other way around.

I’m walking. Stunted, but this is the third day of new pressures. My leg is unsure of this new activity. She’s resisting and drooping under the new demands. She’s hard, stiff, unforgiving. She doesn’t work right, her foot can’t bend forward and whines when asked to move side to side, up and down. The new hardware is awkward but not ill-fitting. The bone is still broken, and slightly attracted to the tibia, which is called “Plastic Deformation” but the plate is keeping that attraction at bay. I balked at the sight of the break, and realized what the doctor meant when he said, “It’s not a race to get you skating again, it’s a race to get you skating safely.”

My patience is wearing thin, however. I’m starting to feel myself not care so much anymore. Not in a sad way, but in a “eh, I can do something else…ooh a mountain!” kind of way. Like that dog in “UP” – SQUIRREL! But I know I love skating, I know I love roller derby and I for the most part it’s fun being a part of a league, however socially bizarre it can get (it’s a sociologist’s wet dream; why am I not using this experience to my advantage?); derby leagues are petri dishes.

I’m easily distracted, is all. Summer’s coming and I find myself consistently homesick but know I have unfinished business here. The kid has to crawl through high school and get settled, most importantly. Then, who knows, maybe I’ll settle in a fishing village in Newfoundland for a year and see what the air smells like from the Northeast, just to shake things up a little bit. Or maybe I’ll open up that hot dog cart in an artsy beach town on the North Coast somewhere. Settle into the woods and sink my toes into new roots. There are always new things to find and new people to meet and new things to experience. I’ve been here too long. Five years is making the hair on the back of my neck stand tall and my palms are moist with tension. I want to see what’s around the corner.

Ah, but here I am, wounded and captive in a boot. For the next almost-two weeks, I walk bound in a boot strapped up to my knee as I limp toward wholeness. Then one week without it, then a check in. The doctor man thinks I’m driving in less time than that; perhaps driving myself to my own appointment as he snaps new pictures of my healing leg and sends me off to a Physical Therapist to get this thing working again and working well.

I think I might be more excited about driving than anything else. It is freedom. I can leave the city, the state, the country even. Hit the road and get distance from the last few years of this job where I’ve grown bleary eyed and confused, questioning my career path and a billion other choices that led me to this spot.

For now, I heal heal heal. Just knit together, old bones. Just knit together already.