Meditations from a busybody 18-year-old with a broken ankle
By Katarina Sparling, Wisteria Magazine
To start, I don’t know anyone over 13 and under 80 that’s broken an ankle. Not exactly how I was hoping to end my senior year of high school, with surgery Monday, bed rest for a week, and crutches for 4 weeks, including stomping across the stage at graduation. Nonetheless, the ankle is broken. No amount of mumbling “how the fuck did this happen” will fuse my fractured bone back together. So here I am, an 18-year-old about to graduate who can’t drive, can’t play soccer, and can’t even go up the stairs. And so I am left with much too much time and very few places to go. What should I do?
I sit, I have my friends pick me up to go get coffee, and I porch.
What is porching? Well, it is a Southern tradition of spending all day sitting out on a porch. It doesn’t have to be yours, it can be a friend's or a cousin's porch. There you may read, write, gossip, pet the dog, say hi to neighbors walking by, or even get in heated debates about the pitfalls of human interaction with the internet with your dad. What you cannot do, however, is escape. You must sit and endure whoever comes to visit you with whatever conversation they have on their mind because you literally cannot walk away when you have a broken ankle. It is this stillness that is at the center of my meditation.
I am a busybody. Constantly planning, working, visiting, moving, worrying, and doing anything to avoid being still. Many of you may relate, as shows like Coco Melon probably also melted your brains as a child. But that is a conversation for another time. Being incapable of moving has made me feel trapped in a lot of ways, relying on other people to do things as simple as getting me a glass of water or bringing me my shoe. However, it has also freed me by limiting the previously infinite set of options for what I could and should be doing with my time. I am forced to read that book I’ve been wanting forever, I can finish that application I've been procrastinating, and I can invite that friend over to chat with who I’ve been wanting to see for weeks. By narrowing the options I had for things to do, I have been able to infinitely expand my ability actually do them.
Despite how it may feel, you don’t have to break your ankle to make this change. Making an effort to prioritize slowing down every once in a while is essential to maintaining your sanity. And I don’t mean “me time” that consists of scrolling on TikTok for two hours or even binging a new show, for even this is a practice of distraction. I mean leaving your phone behind and taking a hike to touch some grass (given your ankle isn't broken, of course) or taking time to porch, just try to truly embrace chilling the fuck out.
