The Breaking of Resilience

The Breaking of Resilience

Krystal Renee

Resiliency is a worn, tattered jacket I keep tucked away in the depths of a closet. I did not need the jacket until catastrophe struck. Though frayed, old, and out of style, it’s comfortable—my go-to when nothing else works. The jacket collects dust most days, but it’s still my favorite tool. I store it in the darkest corner of the closet in hopes it will bring me peace. Resiliency is for life. Even on days when I’m flying through the water in the pool or walking through the gardening store to buy plants I don’t need, I am never without it. Life is tough, and being called resilient isn’t what gets someone through a traumatic or life-changing moment. That strength resides within the person, within me. Life is hard regardless of the path you choose; resilience keeps you standing in the battle.

When catastrophe strikes, I don’t label myself as resilient. I don’t pull that armor from my closet, shake off the dust, and suddenly become brave. Resiliency is found in the battle—in the hidden, silent pieces of the fight no one talks about. In a stolen moment, just seconds long, equivalent to a breath drawn or a blink of an eye—or more accurately, a tumble and twist—I found myself here once more, or rather, as the new version of me I would grow into. It only takes a few seconds to shed who you were and transform into a version of yourself you’ve never met. When moments happen that force a layer to shed and a new you to emerge, there’s no time to look back, say goodbye, or concentrate on anything outside of survival. I was told bones don’t have nerve endings, but when my femur split into pieces, I became fully encapsulated by pain.

My femur didn’t break like a twig you snap just because you can. It twisted, bent, and curved with such force that it splintered into crumbs. Weeks later, my husband demonstrated it with a pretzel stick, holding each end and twisting in opposite directions until crumbs scattered across the tabletop. When my body hit the cool hardwood floor that morning, my bones became pretzel crumbs.

People ask, “What was the worst part?” One might assume it was the break itself, the surgery to install a titanium rod, or the discomfort of coming home. But the worst part is becoming a new person while still grieving the old one, all while that tattered jacket reminds you to push forward. The worst part is that you have no choice but to become new. There are no sign-up sheets plastered along the walls we walk between in life that read “Hey! Want to break a leg in a traumatic way? Sign up here!” This isn’t what I signed up for.

Push forward. Hurry up. You’re going to miss the train to heal and be better overnight. That’s how I approach all injuries: if I work hard enough, fast enough, maybe I can recover quickly, and the new version of me can be forgotten. I want to get back to living, to swimming, to fading into the background of people’s lives rather than becoming the latest topic of gossip. If I work hard enough to silence the constant grief, the noise might drown it out so I can’t hear it. I can’t hear who I was before. I can’t slow down.

I don’t cry. I don’t cry when my femur breaks. I don’t cry when hospital teams move my body and lifeless leg from one bed to another, and my screams echo from bone fragments colliding inside me. I don’t cry when they tell me I am broken. I cry when a nurse tells my husband, “Her head is fine, but her femur is a mess.” I’m not sad—but as my husband’s tears fall against my ankle, where he rests his head, I fill with rage. My tears aren’t sadness; they’re scalding rage.

I’ve learned great negotiation skills through tragedy. What can I give up or trade for what I want? Unfortunately, life doesn’t accept cash, bitcoin, or even my ragged old sweater in return for standing tall again. You can’t barter with injury. You can’t say, “If I rest today, will I be healed tomorrow?” Life will outrun you. I had to accept I was battered, broken, miserable, and patched up for repair. Fix the leg, put a bandage on it, and like splinting a butterfly’s wing, everyone expects you to crumble and never fly again. Stand up.

I went home from a three-day hospital stay with one goal: to repair myself and become less of a burden. I wasn’t casted or even splinted—just bandaged from hip to knee. Broken, sliced open, repaired, and the rest was up to me. My leg didn’t move well. It didn’t move at all for several days. My knee joint was intact, so amid my frustration, I wondered why I couldn’t bend my leg. Our bodies, like scared cats, hide when threatened. My knee wasn’t directly injured, but the soft tissue around it had broken, then been cut open. It went into hiding, inflamed and uncooperative. If the body’s stubbornness wasn’t so damn admirable, I might be flattered.

The surgeon said most people don’t walk for 6–8 weeks. Why? “Pain,” he said. But I was already in pain. I needed to move. If I didn’t, my body would freeze like cement. With a titanium rod running through my femur, there wasn’t much I couldn’t do—even six days post-op. Working through the pain allowed me a faster recovery, but it also kept the grief quiet.

I grieved for my independence. For the luxury of getting off the couch to grab a drink. And I grieved for the water. Swimming was my refuge. Injuries don’t matter in the water, past or present. In the water, all past selves are drowned. There is no rage or sadness there; only motion, only breath. I began to barter with myself. If I do physical therapy now, one week post-op, I can return to the water sooner. Life is hard. This injury was catastrophic. I had nothing to prove, yet I had somewhere to be: the water.

I was no longer the woman I was a week ago—swimming, walking, blending into the background. Now, I was resilient. A cocoon I had to break from in a day. Concentrate on what’s in front of me, not behind. The jacket is still there, still worn, still needed. But I’m not hanging it up just yet. More often than not, we are forced into a new environment in which we had no say or leg to stand on to disagree. Life chews us all up like pretzel leg crumbs, but we can choose to fight back and emerge into the latest version of ourselves. The emergence of a new self doesn’t always need to be met with grace; in fact, I meet mine with violence and agony. I didn’t sign up or agree to become someone new, but within seconds, I now occupied the girl I was seconds before life, brand new but shattered. Broken wings, broken legs, patch up and work towards flight again, or for me, swimming and independence.