The Broken Bone Theory

I’ve never broken a bone.

I have never had the pleasure, if you can even call it that, of that kind of pain.

Growing up, I lived the lives of two different people. One part of me was the wild tomboy, climbing trees with the boys in the neighbourhood, roughhousing with my brothers, chasing mangoes, and kicking back when they pushed me too hard. The other part? The quiet, book-loving, TV-watching kid who kept to herself, not because she was shy but because sometimes silence felt safer than noise.

When I played the rough-and-tumble version of myself, I’d sometimes worry about broken bones. But it was never more than a passing thought, never something real enough to slow me down.

Was I a sickly child? Not really. The only real threat was the female Anopheles mosquito. Malaria was the battle I knew. And with it came Ribena and chips, small comforts my body often rejected. And my siblings often enjoyed. Appetite gone. Energy drained. But still… no broken bones.

Even when I learned to ride a bike, I used my big toes as brakes. They bled, bruised, and swelled, but the damage never reached the bone. My trust in my brothers, though? That broke. See, they used to swear they were holding the bike. “We’ve got you,” they’d say, convincing me they wouldn’t let go. But they always did. And I always found out too late, when I was wobbling down the path on my own, heart pounding, fear flaring. They lied. Not to be cruel, but because they thought it was the only way I’d learn.

They weren’t wrong. I did learn. But still, broken trust, not broken bones.

And then there were/are the boda bodas. Death traps on two wheels. I’ve been thrown off more than once, body scraping the gravel, mind too dazed to scream, or body too shocked to not stop screaming. Still, nothing broke. There was even that time, as a child, when I was in a taxi that got hit by an army bus. The story made small-town Entebbe news. We had wounds, we had shock, but again… no broken bones.

I’ve always wondered, Why? Am I lucky? Or are the broken bones just waiting for their time?

Recently, I stumbled on a TikTok theory, because, of course, TikTok is the university of soft truths. They called it that ‘The Never Broken Theory. It said that people who’ve never broken a bone end up feeling all their pain instead. Emotionally. Spiritually. That they, essentially, carry all their breaks inside.

It also said we might have guardian angels. I like that part. I want to believe I’ve got a guardian angel watching over me. But then… what’s this constant heaviness in my chest? What angel lets me feel like this? What are they really guarding if they can’t guard my heart?

Someone once told me I bring the sun. That I’m warmth and light and joy. That my smile is the sun. And I smiled back when I heard those words. Maybe my eyes even sparkled.

But I didn’t feel it. Not the light. Not the warmth. What sun, when inside me it feels like night?

Maybe the darkness is just the Yang to my Yin, my sun that I bring. Maybe that’s how balance works. But sometimes, I wonder if it’s just me. Broken in all the places no X-ray can see.

I ask myself things I don’t have answers for. Why is it that I daily have to be in a fight with my mind? Why do I have to do it anyway? Is it the PMDD? The monthly visitor that doesn’t just knock, but tears the door off its hinges and drags suicidal ideation behind it?

Am I just the worst person to ever live, and this is karma?

Has death outsourced its job, too lazy to come for me outright, so it kills my mental health slowly?

Does God not love me?

Am I just not worthy of the peace that neurotypicals carry so casually?

Is it just that I’m broke?

And doesn’t “broke” rhyme a little too closely with “broken”?

Or maybe… maybe it’s all of it.

Or none of it.

I don’t know.

But I hope.

I hope that one day I get better.

I hope that when I smile, it won’t be just for show. That it’ll come from someplace real, someplace sunlit.

I hope “fine” stops being code for “not okay.”

I hope that one day, when someone asks how I am and I say “I’m okay,” I will mean it with my whole chest.

And maybe – just maybe – I won’t ever need a broken bone to prove I’ve lived through pain.