NuclearNed
Raconteur
I edged closer to the drop-off and stared into the darkness. I could barely see the bottom way down below, but there would be no fear in me that day. In spite of the danger, I couldn’t help but giggle like a little kid. I had no harness, ropes, or any other safety gear. After only a moment’s hesitation I gave a powerful push with my legs and hurled myself into the void. I was flying…
It would be a while before I realized the significance of that jump.
For a year or so I’ve been having some minor vision problems with my left eye, so last week I finally got myself in to see the optometrist. As I’m about to turn 42 years old, I expect a few body parts here and there to naturally quit functioning at peak performance, and mentioned this to the doctor. He put me through a gauntlet of tests, but the results were puzzling to him. It appeared to him that this was somehow not age-related in the normal sense as my actual prescription had not changed since 2007. This was something else, but he couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. Somewhere along the line something has affected the ocular muscles in my left eye so that as I’ve grown older, they are no longer capable of holding the eye in perfect alignment with the right. He said that in children this is something they would correct by putting a patch over the dominant eye for a while so that the lazy eye can strengthen. Apparently this condition is kind of unusual in adults, and his message to me was to learn to live with it since my vision is still pretty good.
A year ago, something happened that was seemingly unrelated.
Last summer I went hiking for a week in Zion National Park in Utah with a couple of good friends from work. I’ve visited Zion several times and hiked many of the trails, so I knew what kind of terrain to expect. The way I feel about Zion is really kind of strange; it’s my favorite place in the world, but certain parts of the park fill me with overwhelming dread. The problem is that Zion is filled with endless miles of gorgeous trails fit only for goats, and I have a lot of deep issues contending with heights. What’s strange is that I actually love heights and being in high places, but I have an unnaturally strong fear of falling. To help explain this strange distinction, allow me to point out that I occasionally do some technical alpine climbing. Even though I’ve been in extremely high places on nearly vertical slopes, the fear never kicks in, I think, because I have complete confidence in my gear and training. However, sometimes when walking on a flat, level trail with no gear, inches away from a huge cliff, I have to maintain complete focus or else I curl up and suck my thumb. It’s a weird thing, especially considering I’m quite fearless in other regards, and it’s plagued me for as long as I can remember. Sure enough, when I was in Zion last year, there were a couple of trails I was unable to complete. My buddies were amused.
A few years prior to that, I found myself in the doctor’s office for an x-ray of my head.
“That must have been one Hell of an accident.”
“Huh?” I was sleepy from waiting on the doctor so long, and I had no clue what he was talking about as he entered the room.
“I said, ‘That must have been one Hell of an accident.’”
He brought over a set of x-rays and pointed out something unusual. Starting inside the socket of the left eye, there was a long fracture that ran up the forehead and completely across the top of the skull all the way to the back of the head. He commented that it looked like the fracture had healed a long time ago. I assured him that he was mistaken; these couldn’t be my x-rays as I had never had any type of head injury beyond the normal bangs and bruises that boys get when growing up. He assured me that there was no mistake. These were mine, and the evidence was clear: something bad had happened to me.
A few years before that, back when I was in high school, I firmly believed that my naturally funny-looking nose would forever keep me from getting laid.
My life-long assumption had been that my big, crooked nose was just the product of bad genes. I’ve never been able to breathe properly out of one side of it. The cartilage inside feels like it has all sorts of odd angles and unnaturally knobby parts, but I never thought much about it since I can’t remember it ever being any other way. It is obvious to see that it is leaning to the right side just slightly, away from my left eye. Someone once told me that it looked like it had been broken, but I was sure that that had never happened.
Several years before that, my Mom took me to a doctor’s appointment for a general checkup.
For reasons that have been lost to time, he made me wear an eye patch on my right eye so that hopefully something in my left would correct itself. I was just a wee little kid, but I have very fuzzy memories of me running up and down the stairs while wearing the patch. My Mom wigged out and told me to slow down or else I would fall and break my neck. That’s more or less the entire memory, but I also vaguely remember her good-naturedly telling me that I looked like a pirate. My Mom could make the best out of anything.
Several years before that, when I was just a year or two old, I somehow managed to get out of my Mom’s sight.
She had put me in one of those baby walkers that teach babies how to bump into things. I guess I’ve always been adventurous, and no doubt on some occasion had seen the full flight of stairs that lead to the basement. Burning with curiosity about the unknown, I rolled up to the edge of the top step and looked down. Probably unintentionally, I kicked the floor with my chubby little legs and launched myself into the air.
When my hysterical Mom found me, she said that I and the walker were sitting upright in the basement. I had a small red bump on my forehead above my left eye, but otherwise seemed ok, except that she had to fight to keep me awake. She and my Dad rushed me to the ER. In the early 70’s, state of the art emergency care apparently consisted of doctors applying leeches to various parts of my body, followed by a cursory exorcism. Without a single x-ray or other in-depth test, the doctors told my parents I was fine and that they should go home. They basically had taken a quick glance at me, then had taken Mom and Dad's money without even checking me for a concussion. Relieved, my parents had no reason to not believe them.
And I am fine. I have no reason to believe otherwise. And I am fine. I have no reason to believe otherwise.
It would be a while before I realized the significance of that jump.
For a year or so I’ve been having some minor vision problems with my left eye, so last week I finally got myself in to see the optometrist. As I’m about to turn 42 years old, I expect a few body parts here and there to naturally quit functioning at peak performance, and mentioned this to the doctor. He put me through a gauntlet of tests, but the results were puzzling to him. It appeared to him that this was somehow not age-related in the normal sense as my actual prescription had not changed since 2007. This was something else, but he couldn’t figure out exactly what it was. Somewhere along the line something has affected the ocular muscles in my left eye so that as I’ve grown older, they are no longer capable of holding the eye in perfect alignment with the right. He said that in children this is something they would correct by putting a patch over the dominant eye for a while so that the lazy eye can strengthen. Apparently this condition is kind of unusual in adults, and his message to me was to learn to live with it since my vision is still pretty good.
A year ago, something happened that was seemingly unrelated.
Last summer I went hiking for a week in Zion National Park in Utah with a couple of good friends from work. I’ve visited Zion several times and hiked many of the trails, so I knew what kind of terrain to expect. The way I feel about Zion is really kind of strange; it’s my favorite place in the world, but certain parts of the park fill me with overwhelming dread. The problem is that Zion is filled with endless miles of gorgeous trails fit only for goats, and I have a lot of deep issues contending with heights. What’s strange is that I actually love heights and being in high places, but I have an unnaturally strong fear of falling. To help explain this strange distinction, allow me to point out that I occasionally do some technical alpine climbing. Even though I’ve been in extremely high places on nearly vertical slopes, the fear never kicks in, I think, because I have complete confidence in my gear and training. However, sometimes when walking on a flat, level trail with no gear, inches away from a huge cliff, I have to maintain complete focus or else I curl up and suck my thumb. It’s a weird thing, especially considering I’m quite fearless in other regards, and it’s plagued me for as long as I can remember. Sure enough, when I was in Zion last year, there were a couple of trails I was unable to complete. My buddies were amused.
A few years prior to that, I found myself in the doctor’s office for an x-ray of my head.
“That must have been one Hell of an accident.”
“Huh?” I was sleepy from waiting on the doctor so long, and I had no clue what he was talking about as he entered the room.
“I said, ‘That must have been one Hell of an accident.’”
He brought over a set of x-rays and pointed out something unusual. Starting inside the socket of the left eye, there was a long fracture that ran up the forehead and completely across the top of the skull all the way to the back of the head. He commented that it looked like the fracture had healed a long time ago. I assured him that he was mistaken; these couldn’t be my x-rays as I had never had any type of head injury beyond the normal bangs and bruises that boys get when growing up. He assured me that there was no mistake. These were mine, and the evidence was clear: something bad had happened to me.
A few years before that, back when I was in high school, I firmly believed that my naturally funny-looking nose would forever keep me from getting laid.
My life-long assumption had been that my big, crooked nose was just the product of bad genes. I’ve never been able to breathe properly out of one side of it. The cartilage inside feels like it has all sorts of odd angles and unnaturally knobby parts, but I never thought much about it since I can’t remember it ever being any other way. It is obvious to see that it is leaning to the right side just slightly, away from my left eye. Someone once told me that it looked like it had been broken, but I was sure that that had never happened.
Several years before that, my Mom took me to a doctor’s appointment for a general checkup.
For reasons that have been lost to time, he made me wear an eye patch on my right eye so that hopefully something in my left would correct itself. I was just a wee little kid, but I have very fuzzy memories of me running up and down the stairs while wearing the patch. My Mom wigged out and told me to slow down or else I would fall and break my neck. That’s more or less the entire memory, but I also vaguely remember her good-naturedly telling me that I looked like a pirate. My Mom could make the best out of anything.
Several years before that, when I was just a year or two old, I somehow managed to get out of my Mom’s sight.
She had put me in one of those baby walkers that teach babies how to bump into things. I guess I’ve always been adventurous, and no doubt on some occasion had seen the full flight of stairs that lead to the basement. Burning with curiosity about the unknown, I rolled up to the edge of the top step and looked down. Probably unintentionally, I kicked the floor with my chubby little legs and launched myself into the air.
When my hysterical Mom found me, she said that I and the walker were sitting upright in the basement. I had a small red bump on my forehead above my left eye, but otherwise seemed ok, except that she had to fight to keep me awake. She and my Dad rushed me to the ER. In the early 70’s, state of the art emergency care apparently consisted of doctors applying leeches to various parts of my body, followed by a cursory exorcism. Without a single x-ray or other in-depth test, the doctors told my parents I was fine and that they should go home. They basically had taken a quick glance at me, then had taken Mom and Dad's money without even checking me for a concussion. Relieved, my parents had no reason to not believe them.
And I am fine. I have no reason to believe otherwise. And I am fine. I have no reason to believe otherwise.
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