Safety Third

Safety, protecting yourself, is an interesting thing. There are so many moments when you think you are safe, and really aren't, and then there are the times when you think your are flirting with danger and nothing happens. Then, there is also the instance where being too safe, not daring, results in missed opportunities to help someone, to maybe cause a brief spark of light as quick as a smile.

Twice in the past week I've engaged in "questionable activities" that didn't take place in the safety zone. Though first, go ahead and get that laugh out of your system because, I know, the soon-to-be-mentioned activities are quite normal and didn't require much...or any...courage on my part. It's actually entirely a case of living under the authority of overprotective parents (but really I can't complain because I'll do the exact same thing to my kids one day :). Anyhow, the first was when I decided to exit the trails and hop on the main road for the rest of my run. Big no-no, technically, because I'm generally not allowed on the road alone by myself, and definitely not without telling someone, ever since 75% of traffic is gas men.

Yet, it was the 25% that ending up concerning me. During the last stint, a minivan pulled to the side and stopped. The window went down, revealing that the driver and single passenger were both nice old ladies. They were lost. But they told me the town they were trying to get to, and I gave them directions to set them on the right track. Before getting on their way again, they politely apologized for interrupting my run. I said it was fine (and really meant it too. I love excuses to stop and catch my breath. Haha).

So I guess it ended up being good I was out there, otherwise they may have driven way off course, thus polluting the air with more CO2 emissions than necessary. This of course means that the destruction of our world by global warming will take place 25 hundredths of a second later than it would have had I not kept them from driving longer. That's right: the whole world will now get to live 25 hundredths of a second longer in a state of bliss.

Thanks may be sent in the form of Starbucks gift cards.

The second thing that happened was Sunday evening. On the way home from our friends' we stopped at the grocery store to stock up for a few days. Not wanting to walk around in the store in the midst of bunches of people, I informed the parental unit that I would wait on the dike that overlooks the river. Mom's lips pursed and she said, "Well, OK. But be careful." (she later informed me that she then spent the time in the store while she shopped praying for me. Gotta love moms, right?).

Anyhow, I meander up to the dike and am promptly driven back down by the swarms of mosquitoes. So I take a seat in the back corner of the outdoor eating area instead, and get some music playing on my ipod. After being there no more than a minute or two, I get some company. He has earbuds in too, and sits down at the opposite end, turning his chair away from me so he's looking towards the parking lot. Waiting for a ride, I presume.

I go back to staring into space, sucking on a lollipop from the bank that I found in my bag. But suddenly he fidgets and looks over his shoulder at me. He turns back around just as quickly, but the pivot causes his cell phone to drop out of his pocket and onto the cement, partially beneath his chair. He doesn't hear it for the music in his ears. I decide walking up to a strange man and bending around him to retrieve his phone when I'm alone may not be a good idea. Besides, "drop your cell phone for girl to pick up and then start a conversation with her" seems like one of those tricks in one of those books. Though I conclude that that is probably not so since he's listening to music and being as antisocial as I am; so I decide to wait.

Sure enough, within a few minutes a car pulls up and he jumps up and walks around the corner of the building. I shout after him, but he doesn't hear. So I jump up too, grab his cell from beneath the chair, and run around the corner just as he's stooping to get in the car. I get his attention and hand him the phone. He smiles, says thanks, hops in the car, and they drive away. Just like that. As normal as can be.

Sometimes the world is a less threatening place than we make it out to be.

But then of course it has to go and be threatening in other ways, in places you wouldn't think. Like your own home. Wednesday night we were moving furniture around. At one point we had the sofa tipped up on its end, and I was trying to slip between it and the wall to reposition myself. However, at that exact same moment, Isaac, who was to the front left of me, knelt down, legs across my path. I was already so near him, though, my feet tangled up in his legs and I tripped. My left leg twisted inward, there was a shockingly loud pop followed by a burst of pain in my knee, and I slammed into the floor.

I lay there for a bit, more in mental agony from the sickening sound of the pop. Within a few minutes, though, as the inflammation started, the pain in my knee became pretty bad, despite almost instant ice and ibuprofen. Then it swelled up.

Initially we thought it might be my ACL. Which I strongly hoped against because I'd treated people at physical therapy for ACL tears, and it's a long hard road for the injured. By morning, however, though my knee was still all swollen and felt like an elephant had stepped on it, I was able to isolate the main feeling of pain to the medial area. Even so, as I did research to figure out whether or not I should go to the doctors, it still seemed like I may have torn my meniscus, because of the twisting motion I went through and the pop I heard. Granted, I realized that wouldn't be as bad as an ACL tear, but it still required surgery. And it still meant I'd be laid up for the duration of the summer. At the very least, I knew I wasn't running the Bob Bridgeman Memorial Day race like tradition. The thought of that was very un-enthusing.

So I decided I definitely wanted to make the trip to the doctors. Before I went, Sanna asked what he would do. I said, "First he'll look at my knee. Then he'll gently touch it. Then he'll grab my leg with both hands and contort it in all these weird positions." And that's exactly what he did, with surprisingly minimal "ouching" on my part, and with the diagnoses of an incompletely torn medial collateral ligament. Treatment: ibuprofen for a week, rest, and no 5k unless I was pain free for 3 days before it. Since I'm still in pain today, no race. Bummer. I guess I'll be cheering on the side-lines this year.

However, I am exceedingly thankful it is not my ACL or meniscus. Either of those could have impacted my lifestyle for the next couple decades, so a slightly torn MCL, with downtime of a couple weeks at most, is an answer to prayer. Besides, if I am ever going to tear my ACL, I want to do it while participating in something epic, not tripping over my brother in the apparent safety of my own home!

Though I must say this whole experience has been rather interesting (note that interesting is not synonymous with fun) because, despite years of karate, running, and ultimate frisbee with Mr. P,  I've never before been hurt to an extent that requires more than 24 hours of downtime.

So perhaps the moral of the story is it's good to climb over the guard rails on occasion 1) because you can help people and 2) because you can get hurt anywhere, and the same sovereign grace that lets you sit here reading this post is the same sovereign grace that steers you through an intersection or walks with you down those dark back alleys. Not saying we shouldn't be wise and prudent, but maybe Dave Stotts of "Drive Through History" got it right when he made his motto "safety third."