There isn’t just one accident in my story—the story of my life. I’ve already told about tearing a ligament in my foot from my rushing down too many stairs and then falling one evening when going to retrieve a choir folder from my car. I’ve already told about my accidentally plunging over a waterfall in the Black River of New Mexico and the dislocation of my knee in that unfortunate adventure. I’ve already told of other accidents that occurred when I was pushing myself beyond my body’s strength or was involved in some kind of sport for which I was ill prepared. I’ve told about my father’s and mother’s terrifying automobile accident that killed him and left her bedfast for years. Perhaps I failed to write about falling on my head from the hideout in the top of the garage and landing on the concrete. That accident could probably account for any number of oddities in my mental functioning. No wonder I’ve overlooked it.
I wonder what risk assessment experts would make of my accidental life? What would they write up due to my lack of physical coordination, my number of nicks, cuts and bruises? What would they say of my tendency to stub my toes and even fall headlong to the ground when walking through the neighborhood? What scores would they assess over my dislocated knees, my extreme nearsightedness, my advanced astigmatism, my increasing hearing loss. Now a number of the conditions I’ve listed are due to my advanced age, but surely they would note that most of them have been with me throughout my life: my stumbling bumbling awkwardness, my tendency to fall. They may accuse me in this story of exaggerating my disabilities as if I want the government to give me coverage I could never qualify for on the open insurance market, but that is not so. I simply am prone to walk a teetering edge even where there’s no edge and seem to be losing my balance on the flattest of walkways.
I have other risky stories. I’m sure I’ve told you in so many ways about that accident of birth that could be described as being born with a homosexual proclivity. I’ve never regretted that accident or whatever it was. Certainly it would be judged better than being a natural born criminal. So if in this proclivity I am an accident waiting to happen, could it be that risk assessment researchers would say the same thing of my proclivity to feel too deeply in my friendships with other boys in my childhood? And more about similar feelings with men in my adulthood? In these stories their objections are not that I’d so much hurt my body with scrapes and broken bones, but that I’d become unacceptable, unable to get or keep a job, unable to fit in with the majority of the nation’s population. “It’s too risky,” they’d declare. “We won’t cover you.”
My, oh my. God forbid that I might stumble and fall into the open arms of a man who would love me. What an accident to hope for.
© December 2013
About the Author
Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot
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