Days before I was due to fly home for the Christmas holidays, I heard a “pop” in my knee when I landed clumsily in wushu. Dammit, that wasn’t even the proper jump! I was just warming up. It took my ortho surgeon all of two minutes to declare that I’d snapped my ACL. I steeled myself for the prospect of surgery and months of rehab. What I didn’t expect were the little social lessons that I’d learn along the way.

1. Not All Injuries Are Created Equal

Some injuries earn you respect, others elicit sympathy, and some just provoke disdain for your ineptitude. The hierarchy:

I fell down the stairs
Sympathy factor: Low.
Badass factor: None.
Surgeon’s response: Head shake.

I was skiing / playing soccer / playing football
Sympathy factor: Moderate.
Badass factor: Moderate.
Surgeon’s response: “I’ve seen so many of these this season.”

I got hit by a car
Sympathy factor: High.
Badass factor: Low.
Surgeon’s response: Sigh.

I was [insert exotic sport…like wushu!]
Sympathy factor: Moderate.
Badass factor: High.
Surgeon’s response: Silence.

2. You Have to Look the Part

Wearing my small pre-operative brace under comfy sweatpants and a hiphop style jacket, I confused the hell out of airport staff. But where’s the invalid who needs the wheelchair? I could see the question in their eyes. And I’d sheepishly say, “Me.” They wheeled me with resigned puzzlement to security, at which point my brace showed up on the scanner and everyone started fussing over me. It felt good to have security staff, normally so brusque, ask after my every need.

3. People Project Their Fears of Aging onto You

When my friends heard that I had torn my ACL they’d go, “Oh no! Does it hurt? You have to be careful cuz you’re getting old.” It took me a while to realize that they thought my ACL had spontaneously snapped from old age. I tried to explain that I landed a split-second early and my knee tried to bend the wrong way etc. but it didn’t matter. To fellow Millennials who, like me, were crossing from their 20s into their dreaded 30s, I was living proof that osteoporosis (or something like it) hit you the moment you entered your 30s.

4. The Delivery Man Deserves His Tip

New York is possibly the best and worst city in which to be temporarily disabled. People everywhere, jostling each other—a positive minefield for anyone who moves at the pace of a tortoise and has the agility of a clam. But, you can avoid it all. Thanks to that shining star—the delivery man. Valiant, on his bike or in his van, he’ll brave blizzards to deliver my late-night meal or my fresh produce for home-cooking.

5. Everything Has a Kinky Side

Sleek metal alloy, lightweight plastics, and adjustable straps over skin. With my braces and crutches I fancied myself Robocop with a Terminator upgrade. Some of my friends were far more sophisticated. They instantly saw the dominatrix potential for all that strappy legwear as well as the S&M implications of stitches over incisions. I took it all in stride as signs of their deep concern for my recovery.

6. Our Fear of Zombies is Misplaced

Three weeks post op, I was back at the office and walking, with a stiff leg. I thought I was doing pretty well. But then a colleague pointed out that I looked like a zombie. He also mentioned that he’d once test-played a tedious first-person-shooter game where you played as a zombie and took forever to do anything. We decided that horror was the wrong genre for zombies. The world needed a zombie strategy game where, through the targeted deployment of slow-moving, brain-dead but numerically superior zombie troops, the player could overwhelm human settlements one by one. 

And Finally

This is not a social etiquette, but a fact. Mother is best. She came over from London to take care of me for the first week and a half post op. Her attention was constant and unconditional. She’d turn on the light for me when I got up to go to the bathroom at night. She’d moisturize my heels when they started chafing against the bed from sleeping on my back with a leg brace. And she lent me her blanket when I got really cold at night. I might be an adult, but to her, I’m always her baby.

This post is part of the Dear Diary series.

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By Jia Jia
Photograph by Lou Roole