I broke my foot when I was 19 years old. I was attending MorganStateUniversity and it was during the winter when it had snowed and iced and as I was on my way to a class I slipped and fell and could not get up. I had to be taken to the hospital and once examined, I had my foot put in a cast and given crutches and told to use them everyday for the appropriate healing time or else my foot would not be able to heal itself properly.
For anyone who knows me, I am a hardheaded person who typically likes to formulate my own method of how things will wok better for me and needless to say I didn’t really use the crutches. I tried to use them but they never felt like they actually gave me the support that they were supposed to give and they became more of a hindrance than actually helping me. It would not be until years later that I realized that using those crutches properly as instructed would have saved me a lot of physical pain down the road.
To this day I have problems with my foot (especially when it rains) and I know that with any body part that gets broken you are going to have problems but I think because my foot didn’t heal properly, it gave me extra problems. We all have our own personal crutches in life. There are ones that we are supposed to use that we don’t, there are the one’s that we use when we don’t need them, and then there are the ones that we use far longer than necessary and then on top of it we don’t use them effectively enough so that when we no longer have the crutches we are ill prepared for the journey without them.
I have had a crutch for the last several years and it was one that was supposed to only be used to get me in a better position for what it is I really need to be doing. That crutch was supposed to allow me time to get myself ready for when I no longer had them anymore. I had been relying on that crutch for so long that not only had I not realized that I should have removed them a long time ago, but now because I didn’t use that crutch properly as they were supposed to be used, I am ill prepared for the journey without them. The crutch that was supposed to end up helping me has now become the thing that has hindered me the most and without it I feel as if my world is literally crashing in on me.
A week ago, I had so much school work with this Master’s program that seemed to be getting the better of me, and I was frustrated because not only did I not have the time to write (due to massive amounts of school work) but I also do not have the time to market and promote myself or query to bring the money in as a writer that I need to make. A week ago I also had a crutch that I knew would be there, until it wasn’t anymore.
So here I sit, with the crutches pulled out from under me abruptly, with no notice, and amazingly I am sitting here doing the research and working on querying, and thinking of the next project as well as how to complete the novel I am still working on so I can query that, and surprise of all surprises I can am still managing to get my homework done. I seemed to have suddenly made the time that I needed to have all along.
Now I’m not going to say that I am glad that the crutches were pulled out from underneath me without fair warning because I am not in a good place right now and at this moment I am not seeing how it is going to get any better as quickly as I need it to. I can say that without those crutches, I have suddenly jumped into action. I am getting things done even as I am typing this blog post that I thought I wasn’t able to make the time for.
I can see now that those crutches were not helping me like I thought after all. They were giving me an excuse not to take immediate action. They were feeding the fear that I already had about whether or not I can make this work. I thought that they were giving me a way to prepare when really they were keeping me from taking that giant leap of faith that I always thought I was taking.
Most crutches do help us heal from whatever it is that is broken. However, at some point we have to remember to remove those crutches when they are no longer needed because then all they are really doing is getting in the way. I took too long to remove mine, don’t wait until it’s too late to remove yours.
Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310
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