My grade 5 year was the point in my life where I discovered the brutal consequences of being reckless. It was the spring of 2013 and the snow had finally decided to cease. Our teachers were celebrating the end of winter, with the promise of letting us play outside at the end of the day. I loved this part of the day. Breathing in the fresh spring air, and doing cartwheels in the slightly yellow tinged grass.
Recently, we had started a whole new way of practicing gymnastics on the playground of our school. We had a bike rack that was strategically placed right beside a wooden bench, on the far right of the playground. It was a tall bike rack, that was wore down by many years of usage. Conveniently it had a flattened area in the middle of it, right beside the bench. Seeing this, I decided that it would make an excellent balance beam. It was perfect for walking on and balancing all away to the end. Cautious at first I would put one foot in front of the other while holding the other persons arm, as we walked across it; leaning on them for help.
This; however, did not last long. Eventually, I decided that I had good enough balance that I could walk across it by myself. I would hoist myself up on to it, grab my friends hand and wait for her cue.
“Okay one, two, three go!” She laughed as I tried to reach the other side. Proud of myself, I would jump off and scream in victory for the exciting new activity I had just discovered. I was labeled the founder of this new idea, and got all the girls to try it in my class. There was only about 3 girls that were brave enough to not have help, and I was proud to call myself one of them.
Since it had become so popular with our class, we made a rule. You had to use help before trying it with no hands. This was our way of making it seem safe, (when it really wasn’t). Every-time we would go outside, my friends and I would beeline for our bike rack, and try to advance our already perfected new skill.
This was all fun and games until about the end of May of my grade 5 year. I had gotten out of class early and my friend and I were killing time by balancing on the bike rack, waiting for our buses to show up. It had gotten close to the time of having to leave, and we both agreed that we would do it just one more time. I recall saying that: This was the time that I would perfectly balance all the way to the end with no help. It had become a bit of a contest, who could get the farthest without falling. My friend had already gone, and it was now my turn. She was in a rush since she had just seen her bus arrive, but was curious to see if I could beat her record.
“Okay one, two, three go!” I remember her saying as I let go of her hand.
I jumped up quickly, and started walking across the start of it. I realized this was the farthest I had ever been, then saw that the end of the bike rack was near. Determined to beat my high score, I put one foot in front of the other faster than usual, in pursuit of reaching the end. Then suddenly with no warning I slipped. I fell to my right and banged my wrist against the hard metal beam as I fell downwards. My friend gasped, as I seemed to fall in slow motion in to the grass and dirt to the side of the fence, farthest from her. After a minute of being in a haze, I got up quickly. She asked me if I was okay, and ignoring the sharp ache in my left wrist, I explained I was fine.
I am always fine.
She had to catch her bus, and I realized that mine would be leaving any moment. Brushing tears from my eyes, I walked in shock to my bus. My wrist really hurt. I wasn’t really sure what to do. I felt like I was making too big of a deal out of it, so I decided that it would go away if I ignored it. A solid plan in my 10 year old brain. I then walked to my bus.
“Good afternoon” my bus driver exclaimed.
“Hello!” I replied faking a smile
“How are you doing today?”
“Oh, I am fine, I had a great day” I was doing everything I could, just to keep that smile on my face, breathing in the pain that was spreading up my wrist. Satisfied he nodded his head. Clearly my acting skills were working. Everyone thought I was fine.
Everything was not fine.
That was one of the worst bus rides in my life. I was so overwhelmed. I could handle the pain, but it wouldn’t just ease, even for a second. Inspecting my wrist, it had turned purple and red, and I had lost all function of it. I walked all the way home, and eventually got to my house. My mom opened the door, and instantly knew something was wrong, I couldn’t hide it much longer. My face had turned pale, and my wrist was a dead giveaway.
Off to the hospital I went. What I thought was not a big deal, turned out to be a very big deal. I had fractured my wrist in 2 different places, and was in a huge cast for months. None of the hospital staff could understand my story, thinking that I was exaggerating what happened.
“Could you please repeat how you broke it again?” The doctor sighed exasperated. I found it very frustrating to have doctors doubting my honesty.
“I fell off a bike rack, while balancing on it” I explained for what seemed the umpteenth time.
“Hmpff” she blew out of her nose.
“No really I did!!!”
“Okkaaayy” She looked up at me, and stood up to leave the room. I got a lot of crazy looks when I explained my story of how I broke my wrist, everyone thought that I couldn’t have possibly tried to walk on a bike rack.
“Okay one, two, three go” the nurse exclaimed as she set my wrist into place. I had definitely learned my lesson, as I felt the pain pulsing through my wrist.
This is the time in my life when I realized that it is never a good idea to pretend I am fine, when I am not. Doing this really hurt me in the long run. My teacher was very mad at me for not coming to him when I first fell, and the school had to fill out an incident report on my accident, (which nobody was happy about).
That bike rack that once was very loved, has now been banned from walking on. Now if you question the right people, they will tell you that some crazy girl decided to push the limits.
Dear Caprice,
First I’d like to commend the sincerity present within your anecdote. Allow me to explain what I mean by this:
A few weeks ago, I had been talking with Hunni about my own narrative and how I was struggling with a terrible case of writer’s block. During our discussion, she had given me some advice: an anecdote doesn’t need to describe a tragic event or a highly comedic event in order to be meaningful– it just needs to be sincere. In this case, a sincere narrative would be a genuine story with a genuine takeaway. And that is exactly the word I would use to describe your narrative—genuine. While breaking your wrist was definitely an unfortunate event, it was not a tragedy, nor was it comedic (obviously!) It was merely a moment in your life that made you wish you had done things differently. It was a learning experience, in other words.
Thank you for sharing both your learning and your sincerity with us.
In terms of critical feedback, I really don’t have anything significant to say as far as improvements go. Here are just a few grammatical things I noticed:
– There was a typo in the first line. Instead of saying “My grade 5 year was the point in my life WHERE I discovered the brutal consequences for being reckless” you said WERE. Also, for this sentence, I would recommend using “of” instead of “for” just because “for” makes the sentence feel a little awkward. But that might just be a personal thing on my part.
– There were a few instances where it maybe would have been better to use commas instead of semicolons
EG: “There was only about 3 girls that were brave enough to not have help; and I was proud to call myself one of them.”
EG: “After a minute of being in a haze; I got up quickly.”
But, If you really wanted to utilize the semicolon, this an example of what one of your sentences could potentially look like:
Of all my classmates, I knew I was among the bravest; I was one of the only girls in my class who did not need help when it came to balancing on top of the bike rack.
This being said, do not WHATSOEVER feel obligated to change your sentences. I just threw an idea out there to demonstrate what it might look like if a semicolon was needed/utilized. But I think going for the commas will work just fine. ;P
Also, another thing I really appreciated about this piece was the relatability of your takeaway: “This is the time in my life when I realized that it is never a good idea to pretend I am fine, when I am not.” For me, this is definitely something that I can relate to. Whenever I am upset about something and a friend asks me “What’s wrong?”, I often brush them off and respond with the typical, ”Nothing, I’m fine.” But, as you had said, denying our problems only puts us at a disadvantage; our denial prevents us from receiving the help we need, whether that help manifests itself in the form of a doctor and a cast or a friend and a rant. Either way, your takeaway is a good reminder for all of us. Sometimes we need to reach out to others in order to help ourselves.
Thank you again for sharing, Caprice! I really enjoyed this!
Never stop writing,
Jade
Thank you Jade for all of this amazing feedback!! It was so nice of you to really give me useful constructive feedback on what I need to change. I am so glad that you enjoyed reading my narrative and how you liked the sincerity of my story. I really tried to make it so that people would take it in that way! I have changed the grammar errors that you have found and will improve based on your critiques. Thanks again!