The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure that it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
[Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms]

Case in point: tonight, walking into my yoga class (late, as, unfortunately, usual), I swung the door open with the energy of hurry–right into the third toe on my left foot. I kneeled on the floor for a little, biting my lip and whimpering (if I had been taught to curse earlier in life, I would have done that), and watching a blood blister form, and wondering whether it was broken (the toe).

Then I went into class. Then I limped to a cafe to meet a new friend, and got ice from the very nice barista, and by the time I left the toe was less purple than it had been, and I was limping less, and when I got home my roommate gave me neosporin and a clear band-aid she bought in India on an internship last summer, and now I am feeling hopeful again that I may not have to cancel the hike I planned with another new friend for Saturday, after all.