She Missed a Step, Too

It happened in a flurry, as accidents sometimes do. One minute she was stepping out of the shower. In the next moment, the phone and doorbell rang—both at the same time. Carol grabbed her robe and headed for the stairs leading to the main level of her apartment. That dang yipping dog jumped under her foot. She wasn’t paying attention. Going too fast. Whoops. She missed a step. Lost her balance. Tumbled all the way down.

For a moment she was stunned. It had all happened so quickly. She tried to stand up. She couldn’t. She looked at her leg.

She knew it was broken.

God, it really hurt.

Two days later, the hospital released her and sent her home with a huge bottle of pain medication and orders to rest. She lay on the couch in her living room, glaring at the foot of the stairs.

I’ve really hit bottom in my life, she thought. She looked at the bottle of pain pills. Take one or two every six hours as needed. She swallowed two and considered a third. Why do bad things all happen at once? she wondered, waiting for the medication to kick in. She had waited seven years for Michael to come around. He had come around—for a while. Then he’d go back to his ex-wife. Then he’d come back to her.

It was an unfulfilling revolving door.

So was the treatment center where he frequently went to deal with his recurring addiction to coke.

How stupid have I been to wait around pathetically all those years? What was I thinking of? We had some good times, but all the guy brought me was misery and pain. She looked at her leg. Kind of like that. 

She had finally broken it off three months ago. Now he’s gone. For good. And I’m stuck here, still in pain, still waiting, still alone.

Two weeks passed, then three. Money was tight. Her leg still hurt. The break had been severe. The doctor had supplied her with all the pain medication she needed. It was so tempting to just lie on the couch and sink into euphoria. The pills helped the throbbing in her leg. And they numbed the pain in her heart.

She reached for another pill. A quiet voice said, Watch out. You’re getting addicted, too.

For two more days, Carol lay there gobbling pain pills like they were M&M’s. It was a Wednesday, when she got up to hobble on crutches to the refrigerator to get a soda, that she realized she couldn’t remember the last time her mind had been clear. She had been in a medicated stupor ever since the accident.

If I keep going this way, I’ll end up in treatment, too, she thought, heading for the phone. There must be another way. My leg really hurts, but I can’t keep gobbling these pills. 

She called her doctor.

The following Monday she took a taxi to an address her doctor gave her. It was a clinic that helped people non-chemically manage physical pain. She went to the groups and therapy sessions. She began to learn how to live with the pain and relax herself without medication, so it didn’t hurt as much. She was still in a cast. Her leg still hurt. She had still wasted the last seven years of her life.

And all it had led to was learning to manage the pain.

The clinic she attended was seven days long, an outpatient one. Follow-up was available for several months. Carol went back once or twice a week, as needed, for continued help.

It was there she met Jason. He had attended a pain clinic, too. He was a mountain climber, and on his last climb he had injured his back.

“Let’s go out for dinner and talk about how good life can be when you’re not in pain,” he said.

Carol agreed.

Sixteen months later, Carol stepped out of the shower, dried herself off, put on her robe, got dressed, and then carefully went down the stairs. She didn’t want to slip today. She was marrying Jason in four hours.

“How’d you two meet?” an aunt asked at the reception following the wedding.

Carol was silent for a moment, wondering what to say. Choosing to end an unfulfilling relationship, finally after all those years. Not paying attention. Falling down the steps. That dang yipping dog. Breaking her leg. Taking too much medication for too much pain. Deciding to stop taking it. Needing help. Choosing to follow through with that plan.

“A lot of very strange twists of fate,” she finally said. “I’ll tell you all about it someday.”

Sometimes we can miss a step and things still work out if we stay present for all the steps that come after that.

Some people spend years looking for the magic everywhere they go. Often they end up frustrated and disappointed because they miss the beauty of what’s there. Stop looking so hard. Mind your own business. Pay attention to each decision and detail in your life. Be present for each moment. Let the magic come to you.

Remember the words of Dr. Seuss in Oh, the Places You Will Go? 

“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So…Get on your way.”

Anything can happen. Anything at all.

From the book: Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter

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