Blog 17: Walking Down Memory Lane

Whenever I think about the past, various pictures of my memories cross my mind. From the most distant memories that I could possibly remember when I was still a young girl until to the most recent ones, I could probably and proudly say that I can still vividly recall most of them as if they are movies on a constant playback running on my mind. I would not really say that I have had the best memories nor can I say that I only have happy ones either; because in all reality, we all know that that is a far cry from reality; pretty impossible to happen. Everyone has at least one memory that they consider rather too sorrowful for them to even want to remember and sometimes we choose these memories to be buried in which they are almost extinct from our minds, yet never gone. And then there are also those memories that we cherish so dearly maybe because they were joyful ones, as well as because they served a purpose in our lives that had impacted us in very possible way. Memories are in fact, events in our life.

Like I have mentioned before, I have a very vivid memory and perhaps my one of the memories I can remember very clearly, and it probably will not leave my mind, would be when I broke my arm. It was, I think, the year 2000 or 2001 and I was still living in the Philippines. I was about five or six years-old at that time, I just finished watching a Jackie Chan movie, and as a kid I was a huge Jackie Chan fan. When girls my age would usually watch movies about fairy-tales, princesses, and such; I would usually watch action movies especially Jackie Chan's. Don't get me wrong I did watch all those Disney classics especially Mulan--oh how she was my favorite Disney princess, or rather Disney heroine. I think that kind of gives off some details about my personality, right? But back to as I was saying, I just finished watching a Jackie Chan movie with my brother and cousins, and I was so amazed with his martial arts stunts that I would usually try to imitate him. So when a part of the movie came when he would do a flying kick while high up in the air, I wanted to do the same. Therefore, my brother and I, as well as my cousins went outside of our house and started doing some martial arts that we saw in the movie. I was so into trying to imitate Jackie Chan's stunts especially his flying kick that I tried to do the same stunt. Oh how stupid of me, but hey what can I do, I didn't know better and I was just a kid! So what I did was place a chair in front of me that served as my kicking target while I climbed up into a higher ground, well, a higher chair to say the least. Standing from the higher chair, I balanced myself as I focused my attention on my target. I jumped, so high in the air, while I was on my kicking position. Then, the rest was history. My foot collided with the chair I had intended to hit from the first place, landing abruptly on my right arm on the cemented floor.

Everything went blank; I felt certain numbness before feeling a surge of unexplainable pain on my right arm.  The pain was unbearable and to make it worse my arm looked horrifying. With my arm bent as there was also a cut, I didn't know what was going on nor did I know what had just happened with my arm. As a six year-old I was terrified out of my wits. I started crying I uncontrollably as fear overcame me. My two aunts came outside to where I was, sobbing my little heart out, since my mom was still at work. Examining my arm, they tried to ask me what had happened, but nothing came out of my mouth nor did anything cross my mind until they asked me again and again. I lied, I actually lied about how I ended up on the ground and injuring my arm just so that I could avoid a scolding from them and especially to my mom when she finds out due to my stupidity and recklessness. What I told them was that I was sitting on the high chair and trying to reach something and fell, landing hard on my right arm.

As time passed by, that lie I had made up was still my excuse whenever that topic would come up within my family members, with the exception of my little brother of course. He was the one who actually witnessed the whole incident and the only one who knew what had really happened. He eventually ratted me out and I just blushed in embarrassment as I admitted to it. Nevertheless, it was a memory worth reminiscing.