Fast forward to two nights ago (the night before the reunion). All of my great aunts and uncles were around, and I thought it would be the perfect night to ride my dirtbike. It was calm, cool, and the ground was dry. So, I got my helmet and gloves on and began riding around the lawn, driving by the BBQ every few minutes to see if it was ready. For a half hour, I was riding around, practicing short wheelies and stoppies, leaning the bike down as low as I could, and jumping the ditch. My great uncle Delton stayed by the BBQ and would urge me on by making a throttle motion with his fist. Delton rode dirtbikes when he was my age and into his late 30s. He enjoys the two stroke smoke and sound as much as I do. It's perfume to his nose and music to his ears! 

So of course, as the minutes pass I get a little more brazen. Eventually, I'm doing second gear long wheelies on the front lawns of both houses. As I was doing one of these wheelies on the farmhouse lawn, I leaned back too far. I felt the back fender grinding the ground and I was starting to lean too far to the right. In an attempt to save myself, I try to lean left and pull myself forward. I pulled most of my weight using my right arm, AKA the throttle hand. Well, the next thing I know, I'm 6 feet in the air, moving at 20 miles an hour, and my dirtbike is riding ahead of me without a rider. I saw my dirtbike's empty saddle below me and my American flag cowboy boots ahead of me, and then I saw the evening orange sky and hit the ground hard on my left side. It's hard to put together what actually happened, but I know I skidded on the overgrown gravel for a good 20 feet, 10 of those were on my shoulder, a little less than 10 was on my forearms, and whatever few feet remaining was on my helmet. Maybe I landed on my head first, but I don't know. All I know is that I got up as soon as I stopped skidding (no,no number one), started sprinting towards the farmhouse, laughing (yes, laughing) hysterically about how I broke my shoulder (no,no number two), began to move my shoulder around in its socket (no, no number three), and started bleeding all over the floor in the farmhouse kitchen (no, no number four), while trying to explain to my 3 great aunts (who are all certified nurses), that I was fine and bragging about my incident (no,no number five) even though they urged me to sit on the couch so they could make sure I was actually ok (listen to your nurses please). I did eventually end up on the couch, and the three ladies started checking me out. I was severely bruised but could move my shoulder very well, and my eyes reacted as normal when they ran some tests, such as having me identify the number of fingers they were holding up, following a pen with just my eyes, and having them shine a flashlight into them to make sure my pupils reacted normally. I was ok, just in a lot of shock and a major adrenaline high. My great aunt Wanda helped me to painfully pick gravel out of my forearms and pour rubbing alcohol on them, while my great aunt Sharon cleaned up my blood. My grandpa picked up my dirtbike and pulled huge chunks of sod out of its right side (which I'll need to power-wash the excess stuff off it later), and parked it into the garage for me. My great aunt Shirley noticed I still had my helmet on my head, and carefully removed it. I picked a mixture of sod and gravel out of the nose guard and where it had been stuffed under my sun visor. 

I followed my aunts and grandpa to the porch of the new house to have dinner, and all of my great uncles were up there, laughing hysterically at me as I showed off my injuries. We talked about my incident for a good hour, and then Delton started sharing some stories for another three hours. Delton said that every dirtbike rider will have their crash. It doesn't matter how cautious or bright you are, you will crash in one way or another. He said that I was lucky my shoulder didn't appear to be broken, and even luckier that my ribs were ok. He told me to take lots of Advil, and sleep with some ice packs, so I did. 

The next morning, I woke up and didn't want to move at all. I started at the ceiling for a good hour as I felt the stinging pain of road rash and the throbbing pain of multiple severe bruises. But, I eventually forced myself up, spent about 10 minutes getting dressed, and got up to have breakfast. I more or less shuffled into Donnell's kitchen, looking absolutely crippled, and shook violently as I sat down to eat. My great aunt Shirley was up, and she kindly got me some painkillers and the rest of my pills, so I didn't have to get up to get them. This was the day of the family reunion, and I was about as excited as a mean cat at the vet. I took my time eating, medicating, and getting at least 2.5 mountain dews in my system to wake myself up and numb the pain. And then I made my way to the shop to meet up with the whole family for lunch. Everyone asked what had happened, so I told my story about 50 times in the course of an hour. After that hour, I got too hot and was sweating, which meant my arms felt like I had entire hives of bees on them, so I went to my bedroom and stayed there for most of the day. 

Today is basically a repeat of the rest of yesterday after lunch. I can move my shoulder a bit better now, but it still hurts, and a few more bruises have showed up since, including one on my left knee that is causing me to limp. My road rash still stings, and I got a little scraped up on my left side so that stings too. Earlier, after lunch, I accidentally smashed my left hip against a door knob and went into a fetal position on my bedroom floor, silently cursing myself for being so damn careless. I've since moved to the bed, where I've been at for 4 hours, in the same fetal position and in a lot of pain. I think I'll just sleep in my jeans tonight, so that way when we leave at 5 AM tomorrow, I don't have to hold up the carpool by taking so long to get dressed. Then, when I finally get home, maybe things will turn to normal... Maybe... Maybe.