Fuuuuuuuuuck

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck” has slowly inched its way up to the coveted position of My Number One Word of Spring 2017™. I yelled it through tears from the wet floor of a hotel bathroom in Jacksonville. I screamed it in the face of a bed bug who had the audacity to scurry near me while I was scrolling through Instagram before bed. I muttered a long one when I woke up in the middle of the night to see that “Zach from Tinder” messaged me to ask me my weight as a fun new icebreaker. And last night I whispered it ever so delicately to the poor Indian woman on the opposite end of the phone when I realized I booked my non-refundable June 18th flight on July 16th, therefore extending my 2 week vacation to a month and a half vacation that I absolutely can not afford to take. Fuck. Fucking fuck fuck.

But let’s start at the beginning. 2017 had been a big year for me already. I made the gym a huge part of my life. I (mostly) cut out all the foods that made me feel sick. I started dating again. I flossed regularly. I’m a regular old humblebragging millennial and I have been gearing up for 30 like it’s not just an arbitrary marker of time that means nothing in the grand scheme of life and has definitely not pushed me into a dark hole of emotion that I’m afraid to crawl out of May 7th. Yeah, things were looking good.

On Friday, March 31st I saw my angel of a personal trainer for our third session that week. We talked about the month and I remarked how I felt like I was finally in a groove. I worked out 35 times in March. THIRTY. FIVE. FUCKING. TIMES. I’m pretty sure that’s more than I worked out in all of 2016. I took a self defense class, I ran, I tried an insane HIIT class at Equinox, I went to barre, I trained, and I worked my figurative gym dick off harder than it’s ever been worked. And I gained three pounds.

After fighting back tears in the tiny back office of the Williamsburg Equinox I tried to shake myself out of the impending funk I knew was coming. I had to leave that night for an 8 day trip to visit my grandparents and shoot in Jacksonville, Florida and Houston, Texas. I woke up on Saturday and immediately went for a run in 86 degree heat. I worked out next to an old Trump supporter and noted how good I felt despite my proximity to a Trumper. I couldn’t remember a day I hadn’t worked out in the past few weeks and it felt damn good. I signed up for Weight Watchers and started to get excited about the next few months. Sure, I’d only lost 18 pounds since November but my muscles! Oh, the muscles. I could feel them growing.

And then Sunday happened. After a rigorous workout at my hotel in Jacksonville, I turned the shower on in my hotel room and left the bathroom for a few minutes. Long story short, upon re-entering the bathroom I failed to notice the ground was completely soaked, slipped, and dislocated my left knee. My left knee is (was) my good knee because in high school I dislocated my right knee doing a cartwheel. I am both 7 years old and 70 years old when it comes to knee injuries.

As I sat on the soaking wet floor trying not to move my throbbing leg, I came to a realization. It was my Bruce Willis realizing he’s been dead the whole time in The Sixth Sense. That Inglorious Basterds scene when Fassbender uses the wrong fingers to order drinks. The moment where Naomi Watts sees the tsunami arching towards her. The exact second when Julia Stiles figures out Heath has been getting paid to date her. I realized I was fucked. I spent the past 5 months changing my lifestyle for the better and in a split second saw all of my progress come crashing down around me. You know what makes working out difficult? Not being able to put pressure on 50% of your legs. You know that feeling when you’re single as fuck and you see a happy couple and your eyes roll so far back into your head that you see stars and wonder if you maybe damaged your eyesight forever? That’s how I feel now when I see people walking. Want to weasel your way onto my ever growing list of mortal enemies? Take two steps with ease in front of me and baby, you’ve made it to the top of the list. I am miserable.

I spent last week hobbling around on crutches during two rigorous photo shoots and while I tried to maintain a good attitude, it’s hard when your knee is screaming and everyone is tiptoeing on eggshells around you. Yep – tiptoeing. Must be nice. Bastards.

Pile on my ever growing stack of medical bills, the fact that it takes me 15 minutes to walk up the three flights of stairs to my apartment, Zach from Tinder, Buggy McBedBug, an old friend who I swear is trying to Single White Female me, plane ticket hell, and the fact that I have two trips planned in the next two months that I may need to skip if I need knee surgery and here I am. I know I’m feeling sorry for myself and I keep reminding myself that it could be a lot worse but I am fucking bummed.

So what’s next? I’m thinking a cute case of raging alcoholism that tailspins into an adorable stint in rehab which inspires my first book, A Million Little Pieces of Candy: A True Tale of Alcoholism and Weight Gain.

Or, I can gain a little perspective. I am employed and just got offered an amazing position at a place I’ve always wanted to work. I have an amazing group of friends who have checked in on me everyday and people near and far who have offered to bring me food or take me to doctors appointments. My best friend has been making me meals, cleaning the apartment, and literally nursing me back to health. My ex boyfriend/best bud ran errands for me and made sure I was fed for 2 full days. I am so incredibly lucky. And that fall in the bathroom? At least I didn’t Miranda and Aiden it. You know what I’m talking about.

So here’s my plan. I am giving myself another half day to feel sad. I am going to eat brownies and probably drink a little too much on a second date and I know I’ll find something to cry about before I go to bed. But tomorrow I am going to wake up early. I am going to appreciate that I can still sort of walk and I will enjoy a healthy breakfast with my roommate. I will revel in the fact that I have a job that’s allowed me to work from home all week to recover. I’ll go to my 11 am MRI that my insurance approved and I am predicting they will tell me my MCL is intact and in just a few weeks I’ll be walking like this never happened. I will make a list of 100 things I’m grateful for and I will plan the fuck out of my vacations in May and June. I’m going back to the gym next week and I will build the strongest core and arms the Williamsburg Equinox has ever seen. I will definitely say “fuck you” to my left knee a few times but it will be in a playful tone and I won’t really mean it. I love my knees and though they don’t always show it, I think they love me back.

Fuck.