What Happened to Your Face

What happened to your face? It's a question I've heard more times than I can count. And it's a question I don't have an answer for. I don't know what happened to my face because my memory is blank, something that's happened once before.

When I was a kid I fell off my bike. Or so I was told. My mother said I came home, covered in blood but couldn't remember what happened. She took me to the hospital, stopping along the way for me to get sick. Turns out I had a concussion and to this day, I have no recollection of what happened. I don't even remember getting on my bike. I remember playing the sand with neighbors and then waking up in the hospital, confused as to where I was and why I was covered in scrapes.

This time it wasn't a bike. It was alcohol and a lot of it. I was at a golf outing, drinking all day in the hot sun with little food and no water to hydrate. I remember being at the bar then waking up the next morning, missing a lot of money from my pocket and a face that looks like it was dragged across the pavement. Everything else is a complete blank.

I called my friend to ask what happened. She said I walked in and she asked 'what did you do?' I replied 'what do you mean?' She said' your face is covered in blood.' I asked 'is it noticeable?' Oh it's noticeable all right.

I don't remember falling. I don't remember the ride home (we had a DD pick us up). I don't remember stopping to get sick. I don't remember my friend bringing me home and putting me to bed. I don't remember saying the same thing over and over to my husband when he got home. My memory from Monday afternoon to Tuesday morning is completely gone.

Did I fall and drop my money? Did I run into something? Was it something much worse? A million questions ran through my mind. Many scary, yet unlikely.

So what happened to my face? No one knows for sure, but the likely scenario, since I have no scrapes on my hands or knees, is I fell head first into something. And fell hard enough to have another concussion, wiping away my memory of it all.

Head injuries are no joke. Luckily the cat scan I had to make sure there were no internal injuries came back clean. And thankfully, the nurses didn't laugh too hard when I explained what happened. They did encourage other nurses to have me tell them the story, because 'it's classic.'

Friends joked I should tell people I tripped over the dog leash. Other suggested I say I got hit with a golf club. But I've always been a believer in owning your stupidity and irresponsibility, hoping you'll learn something from it. Although Tadpole says some people never will (meaning me), I think the hardier the lesson the easier it is to learn from it.