Thursday night I may have broken my pinky toe. Just bashed it into the side of my dresser.
Friday, yesterday, I tried icing it, raising it, staying off it… basically all the components of RICE except compression because even trying to pull on a sock had me yowling in pain.
But by nightfall I was feeling much better. The swelling had gone down. There was a large bruise developing but it was much, much better than the night before. I figured by morning I’d be in good enough shape to go out to Las Vegas for the 51K out at Area 51.
This morning I tried putting on my running shoes to see how it might feel out on the desert highway… the socks went on fine but shoving my foot into my Mizuno shoe proved nigh on impossible.
I can’t go tonight. It’s not a question of want — I want to go. I just physically cannot go. And so I won’t go. And while that’s the smart thing to do, the mature, adult thing to do, it breaks me.
Compared to the disasters on the world stage, to the political carnage home and aboard, the devastating pandemic that continues to rage due to shortsighted and too often vitriolic dismissal of scientifically proven preventative measures, my not being to go toe the line in the middle of nowhere is insignificant.
And yet it is outsizedly significant to me.
The world feels hopeless and I feel powerless to address the wrongs incited and perpetuated by “them” or “the powers that be” or “the pentaverate” or whatever term we choose to describe those in power that are running the show. In truth, maybe no one is running the show and this whole thing is just an elaborate inevitability of failure.
I am feeling that all-encompassing, soul crushing failure as pain throbs through my pinky toe. I know I’m doing the right thing but I’m exhausted at doing the right thing and still being miserable. It is I suppose how many feel with mask mandates or isolations or quarantines, with any efforts to support democracy, fairness, indeed goodness itself in the face of seemingly indefatigable and vicious anti-human activities and policies.
I am tired and defeated and sad.
But that was true before I potentially broke my toe. So today is just like all the other days.
