I Don't Want Them Back After All

It's been twenty years since I last saw them.

Twenty years of missing them, and fantasizing of their return.

Wishing hasn't gotten them back, half a lifetime of trying to win them back, in which none of the ways were easy or without sacrifice. Pining their absence, feeling where they once used to be.

But then, in a sobering moment, no more. 

I was at a 6th grade basketball game, and No. 24, a small wisp of a blonde boy, 68 pounds at most, was thrown a surprise pass, which sent him first spinning, and then flattened, to the floor. Stomach first, down, on the wooden gym court floors that might as well be concrete. I couldn't help but watch his face.

Contorted in pain, eyes closed, mouth open, head thrown back. If he could have cursed without having his mother pull him off the court by his ear, he would have. He was speechless, his lips pressed together in agony, I was ready to fly Samuel Jackson here to do his swearing for him.

Jiminy Christmas (we'll pretend that's what he was thinking) that hurt like a *$*#- er. I could read it in his face.

He had bounced like a Frisbee and landed full force on his hip bones. The very anatomical protuberance I had been chasing, coveting, daydreaming about one day seeing back on my own body. I instinctively pulled my shoulders up to my ears in sympathetic pain for the poor boy and in a flip-switch of life, I was instantly cured of my symmetrical bone longing. 

*&#*@! I DO NOT MISS HAVING HIP BONES, I know I said it out loud. Un-huh. Because in that moment, I was jerked back in time, to my pre-children body, and I felt every slambang that my own  jutting cow bones had endured. Sharp edged counter tops, pointy school desks, car doors left ajar, kitchen sinks, parking meters, bathroom doors, and exposed basement pipes. Even a damn roller coaster that knocked me repeatedly in the left hip until I thought I'd have bone meal shakes to sell.

No sir, I DO NOT miss my hip bones. I said it, and meant it more with each time I said it. No sir. I do not.

Five minutes after witnessing the 12:38 p.m. Hip Bone Slam, I slapped my thigh, once more declaring and this time owning it. I DO NOT MISS HIP BONES. If someone had a hard time with me standing up and blocking their view of the game, I didn't care. The enrapture of an epiphany is too intoxicating to not be vocal. 

Thank you, No. 24, for what you did for me today. I'm hoping you're able to walk by Monday. In the meantime, please know, that twenty years of shameless pursuit were released like a thousand balloon launch. After the game, I hurried home to celebrate my new skeletal liberation by creating what I now realize I truly want: some more of this wonderful built-in protective fat padding.

I can't think of anything more up to the task than macaroni and cheese with crumbled bacon on top.

 

hip bones? they were here 101520900 minutes ago.

 

 

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