Kids often misunderstand the world around them as they meander their way through it. Thankfully, they are constantly learning and so very often their incorrect knowledge is replaced with the correct version. However, there are those few times that the time between the installation of incorrect knowledge and the correction process is way longer than expected. When this happens, it results in a memorable realization. Some of these are small and not a big deal and other ones really stick with you.
The biggest one of these revelations that I ever experienced had a gap of about 13 years. This started when I was approximately 5 years old and I was hit by a moped (and that, my friend, is a different story for a different day!). Actually, I have no doubt that if you stick with the podcast long enough the whole story will come out, it’s a good one and mostly inevitable that I share it. Anyway, I was hit by a moped and landed in the middle of the road, concussed. Clearly this is not a story I remember, so I am providing you the information as it has been relayed to me. Some adult ran out and contacted my parents who ran out and much to Kristen’s surprise, no one picked me up, they all just left me lying there in the street! My mom, an RN, I’m sure explained to Kristen this was due to concerns about me having fractured a vertebrae. Kristen, in all her 9 year old wisdom, later told me the whole story and during her detailed re-creation explained to me that the reason no one would pick me up was because they were afraid that I had a broken back. If they had picked me up, my back would have curved (I have added a picture below to help better explain what I’m trying to say!) and then frozen that way making me walk all hunched over for the rest of all time!
Photo from The Resident (I’ve never seen it, I can neither recommend nor discourage you viewing this)
Can you imagine anything worse? Thank goodness for my Mom’s medical training to save me from a lifetime of stooped posture. (and so ends the input of incorrect knowledge into little Carrie’s ever growing and expanding knowledge base)
My thankfully perfect postured life continued on through graduation and into my college years where the second semester of my Freshman year I was lucky enough to take an anatomy and physiology class. It was during this class that things came crumbling down. We were discussing the magic that is the human spinal column when we moved onto the mechanics of a spinal cord injury when BOOM! What did the professor just say about moving a patient with a spinal cord injury? Holy moly, I could feel the pieces coming together. The shock that 9-year old Kristen didn’t know what she was talking about was only slightly less than the shock that I hadn’t questioned that information at any point in the previous 13 years.
I don’t think that most of the time the story is quite that drastic. We figure these things out a little faster than I did.
Kristen started driving at 15 with the confidence that every 15 year old has…a whole lot at some times and negative amounts at others. This was one of those times that she knew she HAD it! After all, she’d been watching people drive her whole life! She got behind the wheel, adjusted her seat and mirrors to perfection and slid the gear shifter (found on the steering wheel column) into drive. Just like they do on tv, she moved out of her parking spot and began her driving experience wiggling the steering wheel back and forth at a frantic pace. Much to her dismay, the driver’s education instructor looked at her and asked her in an aghast voice what she was doing. Not having any idea why he was looking so appalled, she assumed he was stupid and answered politely but still in a voice that conveyed her conclusion, “Driving”. He laughed and told her no one drives like that and to stop it she looked ridiculous. Moving her 15 year old confidence squarely into the second category.
See minute 6:31…he’s driving straight?
I have a friend who also had her moment of recognition during driver’s education class in school. While studying for the test she realized that deer can actually cross the street anywhere, they don’t just do it where the signs are located! Though if I may wander onto a brief tangent….have you seen those animal bridges? They have built them over major highways to allow animals to safely cross and the animals actually use them! I find this incredible so I attached a picture for you just for fun.
Sometimes we are today years old when we learn something shocking and new that flies in the face of what we had always thought. I guess it’s worth a shrug and a laugh and a better late than never!