My Biggest Bruise

To introduce this topic, I should probably begin by admitting that I am clumsy.

Some of my many past injuries include slipping in the shower while shaving my leg and taking what can only be described as an ice-cream scoop of skin off in the process. Another happened when I sneezed while applying black eyeliner to my waterline and poked myself in the eyeball hard enough to leave a red dot on the white of my eye for several days.

There is a reason the human body has the ability to heal, and I suspect it is because people like me would look like an absolute mess if every bump, bruise, scrape, and self-inflicted mishap remained permanently visible.

This brings me to the story of the biggest bruise I have ever had—and the unexpected lesson I learned from it.

Please enjoy, although I strongly advise against attempting to recreate the experience. I can personally assure you that it hurt badly enough the first time.

I acquired this humongous bruise simply enough.

I was at the gym, where the rule was that if you left your locker unlocked, the staff would remove your belongings and take them to the main office until you came to claim them. The problem was that I had only brought a towel approximately the size of a hand towel, while the main office was located at the front of the gym, near the entrance.

Since it was the weekend and later in the day, I figured I could sneak in and out of the shower quickly enough that nobody would bother my things.

Naturally, I was wrong.

From the corner of my eye, I spotted members of the nighttime cleaning crew going through my locker.

I panicked.

In a flash, I went running out of the shower wearing nothing but soapy shower shoes and a towel that provided more optimism than coverage.

I had almost reached the row where my locker was located when my feet slipped out from underneath me.

I flew into the air.

And I mean flew.

There was enough time between leaving the ground and returning to it for me to look down and have the remarkably clear thought:

This is going to hurt.

Then I slammed butt-first onto the concrete floor with enough force to make it feel as though gravity itself had punched me into the earth.

I screamed.

Fortunately, I could still stand and walk, albeit slowly, which at the time reassured me that I probably hadn't broken anything. Embarrassed, sore, and presumably no longer concerned about whatever the cleaning crew thought of my locker, I quietly went home.

That night, there was no comfortable sleeping position. Every direction put pressure on my thoroughly tenderized tush.

By the following day, an enormous bruise had developed across my rear end and extended down my right thigh. It was roughly the size of a baking sheet.

My boyfriend at the time found the whole thing hilarious. To be fair, most people who knew me well were accustomed to stories involving my accident-prone ways.

We had taken a disposable camera on a beach trip the previous weekend, and there was one photograph left on the roll. My boyfriend decided that my spectacular bruise deserved to be immortalized. I put on a bathing-suit bottom, and he used the final exposure to take a picture of it.

We thought it would make a funny story someday.

Then we took the disposable camera to a pharmacy to have the film developed.

When we picked up the photographs, the bruise picture wasn't there.

The photo lab had withheld it.

I was angry. I had deliberately worn a bathing-suit bottom for the photograph, and more importantly, it was a picture of my own body that I had knowingly agreed to have taken. Nevertheless, the pharmacy refused to give us the print.

They kept the negative as well, meaning I couldn't simply take it somewhere else and have another copy made.

And that is how the photographic evidence of the Great Locker-Room Butt Bruise disappeared from my life.

Today, I could have taken the picture with my phone and kept it without involving anyone else. At the time, however, camera phones weren't commonplace. Unless you developed photographs yourself, someone working behind a counter could potentially decide whether you were allowed to receive an image you had taken.

I've never had another bruise that large—and I say that cautiously because I have no desire to challenge fate.

Still, it bothers me that this ridiculous little memory of my life was something another person decided I wasn't allowed to keep.

I didn't want the photograph because there was anything sexual about it. I wanted it because I had somehow achieved temporary flight in a gym locker room before landing on my ass like a jackass, producing a bruise of almost legendary proportions.

That's funny.

That's a memory.

And it was my memory.

The experience also left me with a broader opinion about photographs of adults. We can debate whether Instagram and other platforms have become overly sexualized, and there are obviously important questions involving consent, privacy, exploitation, and distribution. But when a consenting adult knowingly creates a lawful image of their own body for private purposes, I think their autonomy deserves considerable respect.

I wanted my stupid bruise picture.

Not because it was provocative. Not because anyone else needed to see it. I simply wanted photographic proof of the day gravity briefly launched me into the air and then violently reconsidered.

It was my body, my spectacularly bruised butt, and my ridiculous memory.

I still wish I had the picture.