What a strange day. Usually when I’m home from the office, it’s for an important appointment or project, and I spend my time rushing from place to place or getting work done. But today my only project was to begin my long recovery from a facial fracture, to become accustomed to a mouth full of hardware, and to figure out a liquid diet. Nervously I monitored my condition — my jaw, now immobilized, wasn’t very painful, but I wondered how sore that bruised rib and banged knee would become. Most of all I wondered if I dared to focus on the fact that I couldn’t part my teeth — I sensed a scarcely suppressed panic waiting in the wings of my subconscious, and was afraid I’d awaken it if I thought too much about my predicament.
I invented some projects to occupy myself — repaired a piece of furniture which had been broken for roughly a decade! — then set out on a walk to the local Amazon lockers to pick up a book I’d ordered. Unhappy realization: just walking outdoors, for the first time since the accident, made me nervous. At the slightest provocation, I relived that awful downward plunge, the sidewalk rushing up to smash me in the chin. And yet it wasn’t quite engrossing enough to keep my mind off my mouth, so I played some Elton John songs on my phone to distract me. I was gradually coming to realize that I hadn’t just broken my jaw, I’d broken my confidence.
Linnetontheleaf 
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