Broken Rib…

I woke up Monday morning with a terrible pain in my side. I could barely get out of bed, and it hurt to breath a bit. 

Scrambling my brain to figure out where this pain came from, I came up with a few different things.  I’m doing this new fasting thing so it could have been hunger pains.  I also started a new routine at the gym so I could have easily tweaked something causing the issue. Or, as some of you already know as you get older you can literally just wake up in pain after a night sleep. No reason at all, just old muscles and bones.  A sad reality about the aging process. A broken rib from sleep is just as likely as anything.

I went off to the gym anyway, figuring I could just handle the pain.  Maybe I could just stretch a little extra and see if it would go away, or I could drink a few bottles of water to see if it truly was hunger pains.  But the pain remained throughout the workout. A piercing pain whenever I took a deep breathe. 

On my drive home from the gym, I was thinking about treatment for a broken rib. Really, it is just rest and a little ibuprofen, but really what helps is time.

Then I thought about a broken heart.  Very similar to a broken rib.  Trouble breathing and really the only actual cure is time. 

Whether it was a broken rib or a broken heart I knew exactly where it came from. See, I had my nephew Myles here from California for the last two weeks. He is an absolute maniac. A smart boy just shy of 2 years old who loves more than anything to be moving. Running, jumping, playing basketball and fighting his Uncle Mark to the death each and every time we see each other.  

He’s in that stage in life where he favors the men in his life.  I’vewatched my girls and nieces all do this as they grew up. Sticking to Mom and being scared of the Bupa’s and Pupa’s and Uncles in their lives.  But my boy Myles loves his Papa and his Uncle Marky. Selfishly, I love it. I get this type of attention with my nephew Chris who I get to see all the time but getting it from my facetime buddy who I only get to see a couple times a year is pretty special.  

From the minute he landed here from California he was asking about me.  I couldn’t get over there till close to his bedtime on the first night.  I saw him as I opened the front door of my in laws house.  I say in laws only to help define who they are, but they are truly my family.  Have been in my life longer than they have not.  I am home at their home, always have been.  But, anyway, I walk in, and I can see him playing around in the family room. He sees me as I walk in the room and he takes off a thousand miles an hour at me, trying to knock me down. We fight and fight and fight. “Again, Marky” he says approximately ten thousand times as I flip him upside down. 

I can hear Mom and Dad and everyone else saying “Maybe we should let him calm down so he will sleep tonight.”  So, I let him win the fight tonight and we put on Mickey’s clubhouse so he can relax. He sits with his Papa and drinks his milk and get absolutely mesmerized by Mickey and his friends. He went to bed and so did I, I needed my rest for whatever battle we would have next. 

This continued each time I saw him for 2 weeks. We fought over EVERYTHING. If I sat on a chair, he wanted that chair to be his. If I had a ball he tried to take it from me and hit me with it. We competed over ever inch of space in that living room. I loved every single second of it. I stole every moment I could with him. My kids are older now, sharing teenage stories and adult stuff. There is never a chance for us to just beat the crap out of each other for no reason at all. I’m forever a girl dad.  It’s my favorite thing I will ever be.  You know if you have ever read one story I have written. If not, ask me someday and I will tell you about the joy I get from being a girl dad. If you can handle a few tears,I will convince you it’s the greatest title you can ever earn.  

But this is about me and my buddy Myles.  He won’t know or remember the fights cause he’s not even 2 years old yet, but these couple weeks are ones I will have forever.  As he grows, I will tell him I used to beat the crap out of him.  I will brag that each time we see each other that I can still beat the crap out of him.

I won’t ever tell him that during one of our last fights he may have actually broken my rib, or that as he boarded his plane back to California with Mom and Dad I may have actually felt my heart break.

So, who actually won our battle little man? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

Until our next visit little man. I love you and miss the hell out of you. I will be well rested and preparing myself for our next battle. Keep growing and someday in the very distant future I will let you win one of our battles….