Greetings from Brooklyn. It’s me, Jen Glantz.
I broke my big precious toe last week.
I had no idea that when you break your big precious toe, they give you one of those big black booties to wear every second of your life for 6 to 8 weeks and when you wear a boot like that around town and draaaag yourself around on the side of your foot, people will, of course, ask: What happened to you?
I was in the parking garage elevator going up to Trader Joe’s when a woman was running toward the elevator, so I held it open for her, and the very second she got in, she looked at my foot and said: Well, okay, how did THAT happen?
How about a: Thanks for holding the door. Woo, the heat really does come in waves. Before asking about the obvious, laaady?
I wish I had a better story.
I wish I could say I broke my big precious toe while traveling in Spain and doing the salsa with a really nice looking sweaty instrutor. Or that I was climbing the Empire State Building. (wtf was that this week??).... okay, more realistic... hmmm... I was running toward the altar to save a bride from marrying a ghostlighting narcissist and I tripped before she said I do.
But I just fell. That’s the full story. I tripped. I fell. I broke my big precious toe.
People like to ask about injuries (AND I AM PEOPLE!!) because they’re curious and because they have a mental list of things to avoid doing so that won’t happen to them. When someone tells me how they got hurt, I open up the Excel spreadsheet in my mind and add: Do not ever try the monkey bars at 38.
BUT HERE’S THE CATCH:
Life doesn’t follow us in such a straight line. The things that end up happening to us are always the things that catch us off guard.
And yet we (I AM WE!!) are so anxious about every. single. thing. happening. to everyone. else.
Anyone who has seen me this week has heard me say: Breaking my big precious toe wasn’t on my 2026 bucket list. A whole lot of other anxieties were. But this wasn’t even something that rolled over in my head during my 3 a.m. spiral.
What we try to prevent is never what catches us in the end. It’s like in laser tag when you’re running away from someone, you always turn the corner, lose them, and run straight into someone else who points their laser at your chest and drains your soul.
I miss having a strong and perfect big precious toe. Did you know the big toe is the most important toe? It supports 60% of your weight, helps you balance, propels you forward. I DIDN’T KNOW THAT until I broke mine and now it propels me right back to the couch.
I’m tryinnngg to have a better attitude about this. As a person who wakes up at 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday and screams at every person in my household to toss the covers aside, brush their teeth, and report to the elevator by 6:45 a.m. to start a day filled with back to back activities because the thought of couch lounging is scarier than a horror movie to me, having to do a lot of nothing? For 6 to 8 weeks? Is a real stink.
Okay, so the positive.
I’ve been doing things I’ve put off for years. I got my guitar out of the closet and started playing it. I’ve been writing love letters to friends and mailing them. I’ve been rereading old books. I’ve been doing these arm workouts. I've been looking at life from the perspective of someone who has to stay backstage for a while. And somehow, that's made me notice things like I'm sitting in the front row.
I’ve been rereading one of my favorite books by my friend Liz Greenwood (all of her books are out of this world and better than any beach read you’re thinking about grabbing). This one is all about intuition and she ends the book by saying:
My greatest wish for you is for us not to be f*cked. Or to say, okay fine, we are f*cked, ultimately we are all eventually. but today? Maybe not. Then to let out a little sigh and to smile. To take a deep breath, turn on the radio, and be guided toward the ticket to our freedom.
Maybe that's the lesson my big precious toe has been trying to scream at me from inside this giant orthopedic moon boot. The thing I worried about never happened. The thing I never saw coming did. And somehow, in the middle of all of that, I found a guitar, a stack of dusty books, a handful of love letters, and a slower version of myself I forgot existed.
Take care of yourself this week (ilysm).
I’ve read over 20 books so far this year but can’t seem to find a new book that’s catching my attention right now. I just started and stopped reading five books in the last week because they didn’t hook me. If you have any good suggestions, hit reply and let me know!
This song is what’s on repeat all morning. It’s not my usual upbeat song but it’s beautiful and if you listen to it 2x, you’ll find yourself singing out loud like you have something to prove.
In my downtime, and this big organizer is great for crafts and I used this one for my stationary/cards.
I really love having a stack of family board games that we can pull out on boring nights or when friends come over. I have a few of these fancy ones that are great for decor and then a few classics like Hungry Hungry Hippos and Candy Land.
When people tell you who they are, don’t ignore them. What I mean by that is listen very closely to when your friends tell you they loooo0ve something or want something. Write it down in an excel spreadsheet. So when you’re thinking of what gift to get them for their birthday or your want to send them a sweet treat, you can remember that they really don’t like sour candy but dig anything vanilla.
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