Saturday’s bout brought home two wins for SRG, which was awesome. And, despite my fears, I came out fairly unscathed, though a little sore. I’m not afraid to admit, however, that it was probably one of the worst games I’ve ever played. I’m sure it was a mental game and my overall fear of getting hurt. But I can’t complain, because it was a really good match-up for us.
After the bout was over, Doc Cera Bellum—Route 66’s coach, a medic, and the dear, wonderful lady who accidentally broke me—came over to chat with me.
Now, I’m starting to think people might be getting sick of me talking about these ridiculous shoulder injuries I keep having. And if you are sick of it, well, I just don’t care, because one little comment Doc made really resonated with me, and I swear to you, it’s going to stick with me the rest of my life.
As we talked about last year’s incident, she patted me on the shoulder and said, “You know, that bone is going to be stronger than it ever was before.”
I thought about it for a moment and responded with a quick, “Really? I guess I never thought about it.”
And then in the coming days, I really thought about it.
My family has gotten the crap kicked out of us over the past five years. It started with losing my dad. Then Mom had to make the choice to leave behind the house we kids grew up in. We learned to stay optimistic during Mom’s never-ending (as it seemed) cancer battles. I was stuck with the burden of single-handedly selling all of the pieces of my father’s life-long hobby—which still is a daunting task after all of these years. I could go on and on.
The point is this: I felt broken time and time again during that five years. But when you break, you also mend. And you come back stronger than you were before.
Phew. What an amazing lesson Doc taught me! And now that I know it, maybe it means I’ll actually quit complaining about torn up muscles and tendons, and that I’ll be more accepting of what life is handing me. Maybe.
We can all wish, can’t we?
