I think my arm is broken. I broke it when I was eleven, but this is different. Back then, I fell while roller skating and my arm wouldn’t work anymore. It just laid across it’s partner, forlornly mourning its meeting with the sidewalk. I knew it was broken even before my mom saw it, before I cried, and before I noticed my manicure was wrecked. It wasn’t doing the things a ‘non-broken arm’ would do.

This time, I believe it is broken in a different way. Instead of hanging calmly at my side or keeping itself inside my sleeve, it keeps raising in the air and volunteering me for things. Sometimes, frankly, I have no idea what it volunteered me for and I am only alerted to the event when other people’s arms start patting my back. I wake as if from a daze and scowl toward my elbow….”why I oughta….”

I’ve grown out of the sit by the sidelines age of my life, aka #awkwardhermitoutcastteen stage. I have no problem helping out or even stepping up. It’s when the old arm decides to throw itself into the ring and volunteer to do it all on it’s own. It’s only one arm….sometimes, my other arm gets in a snit and refuses to help at all. And they are supposed to be a team!

Tomorrow is a big day at school. It’s one of those events the arm said, “I’ll do that! Easy! No problem!” And then my brain woke up and said, “What the heck!”  It’ll work out…it always does…except for the times it falls horribly apart and I am found later, whimpering in the shed out back with a package of sugar-free, low-carb chocolates melting in my hand.

Near the horizon I can see a virtual rainbow, signalling the inevitable ‘day after’ this event when all will be finished, forgotten, and laughed about. I’m not quite ready to click my ruby heels and escape there yet, but I can say I’m super glad I have a troop of munchkins on my side, picking up the pieces I drop, reminding me of my lines, and filling in the cracks between the bricks in my road. How great is team work?!

Now, if I can just keep this arm from signing me up for the talent show….dang. Too late…cause I said so.

Photo: http://www.blog.tun.com