Balls Were Made To Be Busted

I’ve given myself and everyone else in my age range a break as far as staying in touch. Life sweeps you up and gives you plenty to keep you busy. Those people that are able to spend time with their old friends on a regular basis deserve that much more credit for doing so in my opinion.

In an effort to be better at staying in touch I had started playing basketball again a few months back. My doing so served two purposes. It was intended to get me into shape. It also gave me a regularly scheduled time to see a good friend of mine who I had spent a depressingly small amount of time with over the last several years.

A few weeks into this new arrangement, feeling good about my fitness and enjoying my friend’s company once again, I suffered a fairly serious injury on the court. My buddy happened to be running late that day and I knew that when he arrived, he’d be greeted by me, my ice pack, and my request for a ride to the emergency room.

Despite a good deal of pain and the sinking suspicion that I may never play basketball to the mediocre level I had once attained ever again, I actually sat on the bleachers with a smile on my face, awaiting my friend’s reaction when he entered. When he did, his reaction was much as I expected. He stopped where he saw me and laughed.

“What did you do now?”

“Pretty sure I tore my Achilles.”

He laughed again. Then we discussed arrangements regarding my trip to the hospital and returning my car to my house. With my wife at work and me without the ability to apply pressure with my right foot, driving was out of the question for awhile.

My friend was helpful and supportive as I knew he would be. But first, he had to give me a hard time. That’s fine. I accept it. Hell, I even appreciate it. You know why? Because when you have a good friend who busts your balls, it helps you take yourself less seriously. I think that’s healthy. If we could all look in the mirror and recognize that which is absolutely ridiculous about ourselves more often, the world would be a better place.

When you have a friend who knows you well enough to know your weaknesses and make fun of them, it helps you realize that those things you’re so insecure about are actually kind of funny. If this guy knows I can be an accident-prone klutz from time to time and still likes me, it must not be that big a deal. In this case, it took the edge off an embarrassing situation.

Even as I needed surgery and spent months in a cast, on crutches and in physical therapy, I would stop every now and then, look at the mess I had become and laugh. I remembered his reaction and couldn’t help it.

I give him a lot of credit for helping me. In fact, I look at my injury as a sort of blessing and I’m not sure if my perspective would have been that way if he hadn’t been there to laugh at me and help me laugh at myself from the beginning of it. His ability to see the humor in my misfortune set the tone for my recovery.

Did I say it was a blessing? Yes I did. With the time I spent off work, I started writing again. I had set my hobby aside for some time, but I decided there ought to be something positive taken from the fact that I was going to be spending a lot of time on my back and even in a wheelchair. That’s how I started this blog. Now, my daily writing is a way of life for me like it used to be when I was younger. Despite feeling old and pathetic physically, due to my injury, I feel more like myself emotionally again as I write.

My theory is that if my buddy, who knew me when I used to write all the time, hadn’t been there to put my injury in perspective and keep me from taking it too seriously, I might not have tried to make anything positive out of it. I may have sat in bed watching movies, getting fatter than I already was and feeling sorry for myself.

My friend called me recently. He told me he still had my basketball shoes in his car and thought they looked nice. He suggested he might use them since I wasn’t going to be needing them any time soon. I love that guy.