Pinkie and Balance

I broke my pinkie toe last Friday night. Which is the stupidest, most ridiculous thing you could do. At least when you break an arm or a leg, you get fussed over. You get to go to the doctor and get x-rays and a cast, and people sign it. You aren't expected to do anything, because you can't do anything.

When you break a pinkie toe, you can still get around. Oh, it hurts, but you can still limp around. I didn't even bother going to the doctor, because it's not like they have a cute pink pinkie toe cast that I could get one or two friends to sign (with really, really small signatures). They would have just looked at it, charged me a couple-a-hundred bucks, and prescribed me some ibuprofen. I diagnosed myself on webmd.com. (Which I am considering for a new career: Webmd-doctor. I'll plug your symptoms in and the computer will spit out your diagnosis at a fraction of the cost of traditional health care.)

So I'm limping all over the place. After I broke the pinkie toe, I stood for 2 hours hosting a Mary Kay Party for my friend Amy. (And amazingly, found the perfect shade of lipstick to match my increasingly purple toe.) Grant had a birthday party with five crazy 8-9 year old boys the next night, and I hobbled down to the pool, so the little miscreants...I mean, angels, could have a fun party. And then Sunday, Mia had her first soccer game of the season. And you know the field needs to be 10 miles away from the parking lot. It's in the official YMCA soccer rules.

You lose a lot of power when you break your pinkie toe. Part of it is because you can only wear flip flops. Of course, I love flip flops, but for a power shoe, you are much better off with a boot or a pump or at least a killer Adidas runner. Part of it is, you can't turn around very fast. A kid would laugh or try to get away with something (smash one of my terra cotta plants, for example or try to give the dog chocolate birthday cake), and my dexterity with a broken pinkie toe was severely diminished. The whole "Mom's got eyes in the back of her head" concept fades quickly when Mom can't whirl around and give the evil eye.

But the power that I lost the most when I broke my pinkie toe, was the power of balance. Believe it or not, that little teeny tiny appendage, that doctors won't even put a cute little teeny tiny cast on, is responsible for your ability to balance. When I was at Mia's soccer game on Sunday, it was gusty. Winds of over 40 miles an hour. (Total exaggeration, but it makes the story better.) I was standing, trying to squint my eyes to the sun and reduce the onslaught of wind-born particulate. I felt myself buffetted by the extremes. An impressively strong gust knock me off my right-footed stronghold. And to the rest of the Y soccer parents, (who, of course, were not paying attention) I totally fell on my butt.

How often are our lives out of balance? We spend too much time at work. There's never enough time for the kids. Marriage? We spend an hour or two on the weekends, maybe. Faith? Finding just an hour on Sundays is a challenge. We are constantly struggling to find balance with all that makes life good. Worth living.

But from what I learned through my broken pinkie toe, that it is sometimes just that little thing that can help you keep the balance. Watching a thunderstorm roll in, with your daughter on your lap. Getting rainbow popcorn as a treat for school, just so your 9-year old can feel like a rock star on his birthday. Taking those training wheels off of your 6-year old's bike because you know he didn't really need them anyway. Having a Facebook "instant message" chat with your husband, even though he's in the next room. Saying a prayer for a friend who's dad just passed away.

Little things, but they keep you from falling over.