When I was around 5 or 6 years old, my family moved to a new house. The new house was at the bottom of a hill and had about an acre of yard around it. The acre wasn’t flat, though; hills punctuated the landscape as well as a few large trees. Once me and my sisters were all finished with our home lessons (I was homeschooled), we went outside and play for hours. However, I usually preferred to stay on the deck porch outside of the kitchen. To small me, the hills seemed like mountains, the trees touching the sky, the acre endless.

We also had new neighbors. On one side was a lady with lots of pets: three cats, and two dogs. She was fun to talk to, but who I was excited about at that time were the neighbors on the other side. It was a family, with two children: a girl five years older than me, but the same year in school as my sister, and a boy two years younger than me. Five-year-old me was rather scared of boys, but at the same time, I was excited to have new friends to play with. The neighbor girl and my oldest sister, Ruthie, were fast friends. They played the same instrument, violin, and shared the class together at school.

It was Ruthie and the neighbor girl’s fifth grade year the year we moved into that house. At our middle school, the fifth and sixth grade orchestra participated in a competition, which was turned into a trip for the students. The awards ceremony was set in a theme park, so the kids would spend the day there after they performed in the morning. The students were in groups of four or five, and a parent chaperoned them around the park. That year, Ruthie was finally in fifth grade and could go. She and the neighbor girl formed a group with two of their other friends and asked my mom to chaperone.

I was still very young, and I didn’t like being away from my mom, so she brought me with them. I wasn’t old enough for rollercoasters or anything like that, but I was allowed to play on the small children’s rides and areas. To me, that day away from home felt like forever. I played a game and won a stuffed animal, ate lots of good food, and found myself having lots of fun. That is, until the water park.

Since it was spring, almost summer, the theme park had opened a little water area. It was actually a quite small area with sprinklers, but to little me it was a vast land of adventure. I played there for a while, enjoying the relief from the heat. At some point, though, I decided it was a good idea to climb a small structure of fake rocks made of plastic – I think it was the wall around the park. It wasn’t very high, but tall enough to fall off of. The plastic ‘rocks’ were slippery and wet, and not meant to be climbed. I made it to the top, but then my feet failed me and I fell. With a loud “crack!”, my left arm broke my fall.

My mom, not knowing what to do, borrowed a stroller and let me just sit in it for the rest of the day. She couldn’t leave to take me to a hospital, she still had four fifth graders to take care of! I simply held my stuffed animal sadly and painfully in my stroller, waiting for this long day to be over.

I don’t remember how the orchestra did in the competition, I was in too much pain to focus, but what I do remember was that my arm was broken. However, despite the pain, as a child a broken limb was sort of cool. My friends, the children that I played in a child softball league with, even older children who were friends of my sisters all wanted to sign my cast and to hear my story, especially since it was an interesting one. My cast was in hot pink, my favorite color at the time, and I begrudgingly enjoyed all the attention it gave me. I only had to spend a month with it on, so pretty soon I was back to running and playing with both arms.

However, school ended while I was still in the cast. When I got it off, it was summer, the neighbor kids were home from school, and we were free to play all day. We liked to play in our yard instead of theirs since it was large and hilly. It was fun to run around in.

One fateful day, around two weeks later, the neighbor kids came over to play. The girl and my sisters, who were much closer in age than I was to either of them, had some game going that I didn’t understand. I was left to play with the little boy. We didn’t really know what to do, so we began playing tag. (Though in hindsight, there were only two of us, so it was more just us chasing each other.)

I was a fast runner, and I was trying to win the game, but I wasn’t looking where I was going. As I ran past the doorstep, it caught the corner of my shoe. I ended up sprawled on the ground, and what was catching my fall? My left arm. Luckily, since we were home, my mom could take me straight to the doctor. We found the small bone in my arm was broken, for the second time in two months.

This time, I didn’t enjoy having a broken arm anymore. I felt like everyone was staring at me, wondering what stupid thing I’d done to break my arm again. Additionally, to make things worse, this time I had to wear the cast for two months instead of just one to make sure my arm was fully healed. I’d be spending my whole summer, a time of playing and fun, with a cast.

The family across the street eventually moved across town, and I don’t remember playing with them since, though our sisters stayed friends. I think the little boy felt guilty, though it wasn’t his fault. I’ve heard we’re at the same school now, but we haven’t seen each other. My arm made a full recovery and is now as good as my right. Additionally, I still have the stuffed animal I hugged in the theme park! This memory was very formative to me, especially as it was my first big injury.