Solitude has become my security blanket.
I've been living on an island, and the coast has been clear.
Not even an echo to reverberate my own thoughts.
This is a world I could get lost in.
Or am I already lost?
[I like to imagine that this is a secret behind the scenes Donkey Kong soundtrack. Diddy and Dixie are floating in a placid pool of water at the base of a waterfall, feeding each other bananas, giving each other those wide monkey eyes.]
In one week, it'll officially be the one year anniversary of the big whipped cream incident.
Sounds like a lot of fun, right?
I wish.
Not long after starting my "career" as a barista, this happened:
So as you can imagine, I've always been terrified by whipped cream dispensers.
But you gotta do your job. I mean what are the chances..
I've always had strong hands. I could open anything, carry anything, rub out a knot in someone's shoulders with just one finger.
I was just about to sign up for massage school, and finally start chasing after my dreams.
Then one fateful day at work, I go to open a whipped cream canister.
As I always do.
But it was so pressurized, that I just had to.. put a little more effort into it and... SNAP.
"Holy shit, what was that?"
It felt like one of the rubber bands inside my arms (we call those tendons) just completely broke.
As the only barista on the shift, I had to just keep working. No one took this to be a serious injury, and I didn't know how to explain the excruciating pain I was in. I worked through the tears and finished the shift, and then on to the next shift, and the next, being short staffed, and having no other option, but to try to barista with just my left hand.
The pain was spreading like a disease, day by day, all the other rubber bands started stretching and breaking.
But at least I still had my left hand.
Well good ole lefty, he tried his best, but he just couldn't bear the full weight that had been previously allotted between the two.
Then I lost the left one.
I was out of the game.
I couldn't feed myself, bathe myself, open doors, or even hold a glass of water to my face and drink it.
I went to see a "doctor". He took my money. He didn't help me. He told me to just keep living this pathetic life until my arms magically recovered.
They never recovered, but I had to go back to work.
My little vacation put me thousands in debt, and I had no choice.
So I go back, all taped and splinted up, everyday being interrogated about my cyborg arms.
"Can you just let me try to forget about it for one goddamned minute?"
At least when I was unemployed, I got to enjoy the silence of not having to explain myself. I got to pretend that I didn't exist for awhile.
Well I couldn't keep up the charade any longer, and I got my wish again.
This time I saw a real doctor, and got a real diagnosis.
It wasn't just carpal tunnel, as I was told. It was carpal tunnel, lateral epicondylosis, medial epicondylitis, and cubital tunnel syndrome. Four different things, in both arms, all the way past my elbow.
In normal cases, let's say with just carpal tunnel, the other tendons can take over some of the work, so as to let the damaged tendons heal. But in my case, with every movement, twist, touch of a button, every pound lifted, some part of me was constantly being damaged, and there was not a single healthy tendon left to bare the brunt.
My doctor had never seen anything like this in someone so young. The damage will most likely be permanent.
Say goodbye to all your dreams.
So I sit here, wrapped in my blanket of solitude, content not having to justify having no concrete plans for my future.
I just don't know anymore.
Man I could go for a hot fudge sundae, smothered in whipped cream.
