Control freak loses control

Sept. 8. 2020

‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade… or you can shove ‘em somewhere’

…and oh boy has life given me some pretty big lemons. 

My previously planned blog post covered the reasons why I want to go into advertising. Clearly, I’m not submitting that one, because life got in the way and gave me something more interesting to share with you (sorry, Marc). I was ready to submit it until something startling came and quite literally flew me off the ground. I flew 2 metres in distance and 1 in height, off of a road bike. What a show. 

What’s odd is that I usually have impeccable control- I’m usually great on the bike. The 10am bi-daily Richmond park ride with my father tends to go really well, until yesterday, when I decided we should do the reverse loop, doing the big hill first instead of last. 

Powering through the burn in my legs of an 11% gradient uphill for the first time felt euphoric and exhausting- what I forgot was that usually after a steep uphill, there’s a steep downhill… 

What would have been an easy, wide turn to get onto the side road was now a reflex turn to reach the main road. I couldn’t slow down enough in time for that sharp turn, or to clip out of the pedals. I had three options in that moment:

1. Lean more to my right side and skid on the tarmac- most likely taking the first few layers of my skin with it- ouch.
2. Continue my turn but inevitably fail, crash into a wooden post which would most likely impale my leg or my head- proper-ouch.
3. Hit the brakes and keep straight, hitting the curb and let myself land on the grass and gravel downhill- not-so-much-ouch.

I figured option 3 would leave me with less severe injuries so I went with it. I call it ‘my attempt to fly’, just so I can laugh at myself for not thinking about the impact crash #3 would have on my body. 

Eight hours after walking into A&E, having had my head strapped between blocks for a CT scan and cute doctors (highlight of my day) prodding at my hurting wrist, taking a lot of my blood and cleaning the gravel burns on my left leg (thank you super cute nurse #1), the report comes back: a broken wrist and a fractured neck—ooh! Fun! (can you sense the sarcasm?). 

I’m so lucky I’m right-handed. If I were unable to do squat with my creative hand, then life in advertising and life in general would have driven me absolutely insane. The inability to do anything would have irked my perfectionist and organised nature and would have left me so depressed. On the other hand (no pun intended), a fractured neck is a little more unnerving, a lot more severe and quite terrifying – especially when you overhear hot doctor#2 talking about sending you to cute neurologist#1 and handsome orthopaedic#3 for surgery (literal tears). The important thing is that I’m fine.

I can walk, I can draw, I can type, which means I still have control- it’s just that for the time being I only have one arm available to make that lemonade.