We Are Never The Same Person After We Are Broken

Few months ago I broke my left foot's third toe. I was walking along the flooded street one rainy night to fetch my sister with umbrella, grumbling and irritated, because doing so took me away from chatting with online friends. Not to deny my annoyance, it made me slipped my mind that the road was uneven and the part near the traffic light where I had to cross had an uncovered hole. Maybe I miscalculated my steps. Maybe by some cosmic revenge of karmic gods or goddesses because I was doing the task halfheartedly, they let my foot fell in the hole, breaking my toe and part of the metatarsal bone(the bone between the toe and ankle).

The circled part's the broken toe and part of the metatarsal.

So for a month I wore a cast which limited my movements and made some things difficult to do. Taking a bath was painstakingly grueling, with the foot needed to be wrapped in layers of fabric before putting it in a plastic bag and sealing it with adhesive tape around the leg and elevating it on a chair to prevent the water from seeping in. Living everyday with an impediment was demanding. To stay positive and to cheer myself up, I did every task as a hurdle I had to perform with the best that I had and challenged myself to succeed, while vowing  as some sort of future penance, to do the things (like running) I had not done before the accident. So my thoughts were just directed towards healing, getting better, and walking on my two feet again literally.

Look! I was a gladiator.

On some days I found myself plummeting into sadness being confined at home. But I found an encouragement through a post from my cousin's Facebook. It said:

"CULTIVATE OPTIMISM". – The happiest people do not live with a certain set of circumstances, but rather with a certain set of attitudes. They have the ability to manufacture their own optimism. No matter what the situation, the successful diva is the gal who will always find a way to put an optimistic spin on it. She knows failure only as an opportunity to grow and learn a new lesson from life. People who think optimistically see the world as a place packed with endless opportunities, especially in trying times." 

A month after, the cast was off. The broken bone healed, but the toe was never the same again. It's slightly distorted at the base, curved downward like an obtuse angle turned upside down. It protruded whenever I flexed my foot and never flattened whenever I pressed all of my toes on the shoe or slipper I wore. It hurt every now and then when it's strained from too much walking or running. The result of the clumsy and expensive accident became a little inconvenient that I have to bear for the rest of my life.

There were too many what ifs. What if I patiently waited for the rain to slow down and the water to lower down before I walked on, or, what if I was in my usual clear self and focused on what I was doing or where I was going, would the accident have happened? What if, the chain of events; the rain, the flood, the irritation, the hole; were prelude of the accident that meant to happen. What if, for another reason entirely, maybe at different time or circumstance, the toe was still meant to be broken and I had to go through the same ordeal.

But the thing was, it was neither the timing that struck me the most nor the cosmic design that some things were meant or not meant to happen. It was how the flow of life encapsulated in one incident. One night. One moment. One mistake. One fall. Some pain. Some lessons. Some healing. One incident that somehow was parallel to life, only, in a smaller dimension.

Every minute of everyday, life presents opportunity that demands the right to make a choice whether it's right or wrong. But who knows if it's right or wrong? The thing that matters the most is how we stand with our choices. The significance of the choice can only be felt as the events unfold. Some of our choices catapulted to series of successes, happiness, and triumphs. While some dragged us to misery after misery, heartbreak, desolation, and hopelessness.

But then again, the aftermath of a choice leads to another choice. To make things better, to never sit on our laurel, to never settle after a victory, or to remain there, basking on the soon to be historical glory, or to rise above the challenge of being at the bottom, to pick one self up after a defeat, to move on, or to try again.

No matter how many choices we make in our lives, always, the result is how we become after that. But note this, every time after we're broken for calling some bad shots, we find ourselves in a better and higher place. We're never the same person again.