At the time of writing this, my room smells like an odd combination of nachos and Lysol Disinfecting wipes. Of course, I’ll take this scent over the Neosporin and hydrogen peroxide smell combination I’ve had to deal with for a little over a week now…though now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure gauze and medical-grade bandage tape also have their own scents to add to the mix of antibiotic ointment and H₂O₂.

I cleaned and sanitized my desk today; it was getting really messy, and the guts of the gnat I killed last week were really starting to annoy me. Don’t get me wrong—I did not enjoy staring at bug guts and trying to ignore its existence whilst I carefully tried to avoid it as I went about my usual business. I just couldn’t have removed it even if I’d wanted to, because…

Saturday, at the Perot Museum, I got hurt.

Charlise’s youngest boy, Charlie, was running away in the parking lot [mostly] designated for the Perot Museum. We were in the railed section with the lunch-styled tables and seats, but it ran into the parking lot. Babies make me nervous, and he wasn’t stopping as we called out for him, so I didn’t think; I just ran after him.

I’m not supposed to run.

A lot of people have given me crap in the past decade about how I need to “run” to exercise more, but…I’m really not supposed to. I’m not supposed to put too much stress on my knees. I have knee problems, which worsen with cool air. I also have asthma, and when my heart rate reaches a certain amount, my asthma begins acting up. If I could run without having any issues, I’d have done cross country.

But whatever. You don’t have to run in order to exercise. And how I exercise is no one’s business but my own.

When I finally reached Charlie, instead of stopping, my body fell forward; my knees hit the concrete quite hard. As soon as I fell, I didn’t say anything about my knees; instead, I looked to him and said, “Hey, we’re not going to the car yet.” My knees stung; they were skinned and bleeding, and the right leg of my black sweat pants was torn. My toes, since I’d worn flip-flops, seemed fine and undamaged.

I picked up Charlie, slowly walked over to Chevy and Charlise’s surrobabe’s dads, and tried to ignore how much pain I was in. I’d skinned my knees before; it couldn’t be that bad this time, right? They’d be skinned, and that had to be it. In the van, I cleaned my knees with a baby wipe to the dads’ house. On the way home, I used a baby wipe on my right knee, because the coolness of the wipe felt really nice, despite the amount of stinging my knee had.

When I got home, I changed into shorts, and Grandmama helped me bandage my knees. Sometime within the 2-3 hours after I’d fallen, the bruises had decided to set in. My knees, along with a three-inch radius, were purple and blue and green. The next day, my toes had tiny markings from where I also skinned them.

Fast-forwarding through all the grody stuff I personally enjoy talking about, but know not everyone else might be interested in reading about, my knees are healing. It’s a slow process; I hit them pretty hard. I’m still sore in certain places. My ankles, thighs, hand palms, and arms were all sore, too. No bruises were visible, though.

Here’s to week 2 of this miserableness that is me having to stay off my knees a lot.

The pain, however, did prove useful in terms of helping me write a chapter in my memoir. Everyone deals with pain differently, and something counselors/therapists have always been fascinated with is how I handle pain as an abuse survivor, so…maybe it’ll prove useful to someone.

(My current deadline for my memoir is the end of this year, as I’d like to start the publishing process in 2017. :3)

P.S. It’s taken me approximately three hours to type this up. I’m easily distracted.)