I just want to climb the freaking stairs.

That’s it. And walk the dogs, that would be nice too. I’d like to take out the trash, or maybe empty the dishwasher and put everything away on the top shelves. Picking up my two-year-old without external assistance would be awesome. Carrying him from bathtime to bedtime would be beyond awesome.

Pretty much anything that involves non-crutch-based mobility sounds really good right now—even cleaning the dog poo out of the back yard.

Thursday I found out that I’d broken my fifth metatarsal in an inconvenient place. Surgery’s not required (yet) but I get to spend at least the next four weeks in a boot, off my feet. At best I’ll be getting around on crutches. It’s my right foot, so I’m not even able to drive a car.

I've noticed a few things recently. My downstairs bathtub has accessibility rails on the walls. We've lived here for a year and that hadn't registered with me until now. I'm glad they're there.

Every door to my house has one or more steps leading to it. An office chair makes a surprisingly handy and comfortable wheelchair if you don’t have carpeted floors. People look at you funny in Toys ‘R Us when you’re zipping around on crutches asking people where you can find the toddler beds. On the internet it doesn’t matter that I can’t walk.

I may have met the first few days with a broken foot with equanimity, but right now all I want is to go upstairs, grab my dirty laundry, carry the hamper downstairs, and load the washer all by myself.

Want, want, want.

I want a lot of things. I want a lot of things that I avoided or at least tried to ignore before.

It’s not like I didn’t want things then, too. I just wanted other things—a new phone, a compliment on a piece of design work, tranquility. Funny that a little piece of snapped bone could change something so deep.

Want, want, want.

Funny that a little piece of snapped bone couldn’t really change much at all.