It was a beautiful day, if not a little hot, when I was walking with my two precious pups in my arms across my mother’s patio. Suddenly, the patio ended abruptly in a completely nonsensical place for a patio to end??? Is there an angle? Why isn’t there a fucking stair here.
My super hero cape almost tore on the fence as I sacrificed myself, and my leg it would turn out, to guarantee a soft landing for my dogs.
As soon as I hit the ground, I knew it. I heard it. I can hear it now. I looked up at my mother and said with absolute certainty “I broke my ankle”. I wasn’t exactly right. It would turn out to be a transverse tibial break, so leg, not ankle, and I might need surgery. Fucking great.
I had been staying with my mother only to be close to my aunt, who is dying of cancer, and now with a broken leg navigating her hectic yard and unfinished driveway, my plans snapped along with the bone.
I was pathetic on crutches. Pathetic and quite literally dangerous, so I opted to crawl on my hands and knees to the bathroom, the fridge, everywhere, until I was back in my home in Toronto. Thank God.
I’ve never been more thankful for my cramped little space. 10 crutches to the bathroom. 7 crutches to the kitchen. And.. well.. I guess that’s it. My cosy studio is surrounded by stairs and sits on a steep incline. After the 20 minutes it took me to get from the car to my apartment, I knew that I’d be saying goodbye to the outside world until the cast was off.
It’s been nearly 40 days since ascending the stairs and the madness is setting in. I thought that I had cabin fever during quarantine, but this experience has been entirely different. Covid still allowed for walks outside and lots of opportunity to stand in lines with other human beings.
Since I’ve been injured, I haven’t crossed the threshold of my apartment. All day long, I sit in bed and notice every little thing that needs to be cleaned and errands that have been piling up. Making lists of tasks I can’t accomplish and boring the dogs with long conversations about nothing.
The trees outside my window had been chopped down years ago and they’ve finally grown back enough that I can see their greenery again. That made me smile for a while. Now all I can see is a dirty window that I can’t do anything about.
When the injury first happened I had the boyfriend bring every craft that I have in my workspace bedside and so I’ve been rediscovering my love of fibre arts. Crochet, knitting, felting, embroidery, French embroidery, beaded embroidery. I’ve done a lot of embroidery.
It’s monotonous, but I’ve had a lot of fun. I’ve even created several samplers that I think are wall worthy, once I’m able to get up and put them on the wall.
The patio fall feels like a lifetime ago, but the dirty window still mocks me. I’m able to put weight on my leg now, which is almost worse than the crutches. Still unable to venture outside, capable of moving more easily around the house, still unable to address the state of my apartment.. which gets more dire by the day.
I give my list of chores to the boyfriend, but he isn’t doing them right. My “inner control freak” has gotten louder. I’d rather he not even bother than watch him do everything wrong.
AITA? Yes, I am. And I hate it.
I’m very likely going to be able to ditch the cast in 6 days. 6 days!!! I’m anxious, excited, and stressed out. There’s all the things I want to do, but then there’s the things I have to do. First and foremost, that’s returning to the bedside of my dying aunt. I hear that she’s lost the ability to speak.
40 some odd days of missed conversation makes me sad, but I’m trying not to think about it. There’s a large part of me that is now hoping that for some reason the cast will need to stay on, so I’ll have an excuse to not sit and watch a loved one perish.
Another part of me knows that in six days I will be experiencing something with one of the women who raised me that I will remember forever. The injury, the isolation, the creative bursts, and the to-do lists will be a part of the story, but it will no longer be the theme.
Six days. It was quite a ride. Real life is creeping in. Maybe I’ll fall down the stairs before I can make it to the car.
AXO (she/her) is a multidisciplinary creator, editor, and builder of feminist media ecosystems based in Toronto. She is the founder of She Zine Mag, Side Project Distro, BBLGM Club, and several other projects under the AXO&Co umbrella — each rooted in DIY culture, creative rebellion, and community care. Her work explores the intersection of craft, technology, and consciousness, with an emphasis on handmade ethics, neurodivergent creativity, and the politics of making. She is an advocate for accessible creativity and the power of small-scale cultural production to spark social change. Her practice merges punk, print, and digital media while refusing to separate the emotional from the practical. Above all, her work invites others to build creative lives that are thoughtful, defiant, and deeply handmade.
