Last June I rolled off of my 6 inch gold stilletos and fell down the last couple of stairs on the mezzanine level of the Oberon theatre while chasing a nerd. I did not drop the microphone but I did punch the floor with my free hand because I couldn't scream. The audience at the back of the bar helped me up. I hopped over to my hosting/writing partner aka the nerd on the other side of the performance space and discussed the damage. It was really bad but since the sequence of the next thirty minutes was driven by our interactions, we proceeded to transport my busted up nether parts from mark to mark by crawling, hopping and leaning.
At first I was a little tickled that most people didn't know oh how I suffered for my "craft". I spent the next couple of days martyring myself, showing selfies of my swollen foot and sighing "It's a buck!" I forced myself out to contend with other work when I should have stayed at home, put ice on it and not moved.
Well. That was stupid.
The swelling of the foot went down after a couple of weeks but my foot hurt constantly. Then my hip joints. And finally my knees. For a really really long time. I couldn't exercise. Walking up stairs always hurt. Sitting in the car for a long drive was super uncomfortable. It was dawning on me that this could be a permanent injury.
In 1990, I broke my left foot rolling off of my shoe and down my East 11th Street apartment stairs, running off to a bar because I had just gotten out of the hospital and was free. It literally snapped. Three weeks later, being a young woman living on her own and, in my eyes, a sitting duck to the nefarious types loitering the streets at night when I hopped home from comedy clubs on one foot, I took a wrench and pried the cast from my leg. The foot still has a crooked point where the bone is askew. Until last June, I would always favor my right leg because of it.
The difference between the two injuries is, well, 23 years. I got away with it when I was 25. Not so much this time.
About two weeks ago, 8 months after I fell, my knees quit hurting. Yesterday I walked 7 miles. It hurt a little but I guess it would have anyway. Its a freakin' spring miracle. The damage from my sedentary life that began with that injury is nothing like I have ever experienced. I used to bounce back. This time my body atrophied and gained weight almost immediately.
You would think I could get away with just letting it all go. I'm almost 50. Isn't this the part when all of those old lady rules about aging with dignity and having a lot of tea parties and not wearing skirts above your knee start kicking in? No such luck. Our next show goes back up again on May 23rd. I will be running in (lower) heels, dancing and moving constantly. It is almost a certainty that if I do not take care of myself, I will injure myself before that run is out.
There is a part of me that is wired by my need to perform physical comedy. Thank God for that because it hurts so much now to do it. I am no longer indestructible. It takes energy I never needed to have before. Yes, I think being healthy is good, but, honestly, not falling off the mezzanine again is a much larger motivator.
So next time I injure myself.....and there will be a next time because there always is.....I put whatever part it is that I busted up on ice and stop till it heals. I don't intend on acting like I am almost 50 but I can't forget the actuality that I am.
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