On Sunday night I was playing intramural soccer when I challenged the player with the ball and in doing so, I re-tore my right ACL that was replaced back in ’08.

Totally sucks. While the action of tearing it again was deja-vu enough, these past few days I’ve felt like I’m in a deja-vu limbo.

This is the third time I’ve torn my ACL, yes third: once on the left knee and now twice on the right knee. I tore the left ACL when I was in 8th grade and had reconstruction surgery which resulted in me sitting on my bum for two weeks at home due to the fact that my body is HIGHLY reactive to pain medicine—basically I have to choose if I want to feel pain or if I want to eat…I can’t have both because the medicine makes me nauseated. Since this happens it prolongs my recovery time.

During this first ACL reconstruction surgery recovery I was in that awkward stage of belonging to “AOL Pre-Teen” (remember that?) and playing the Sims/Freddie the Fish. It wasn’t until one of my childhood classmates and playmates IMed me one day to tell me about the newly formed MySpace. Her father had recently passed away from pancreatic cancer so she was spending a lot of time at home as well.

Anyways, she drew me into the world of MySpace and I became hooked with this new social/technological phenomena.

When I tore my right ACL in ’07 and had my surgery on February 14, 2008, I learned of the NIU shooting via Facebook.

And now here I sit: April 12, 2011 with my knee swollen like a “fat girl’s”, as my brother puts it, in an immobilizer filled with ice, WordPress open in one tab, and Facebook in another. Almost 8 years after my first ACL tear and here I am again, sitting at a computer, searching for the answers and stories of the day through the Internet and social networking. While it feels like deja-vu, I like to think I’ve grown in those 8 years — I NEED TO ENGAGE IN REAL LIFE RATHER THAN SIT ON MY BUM AND FIND LIFE VIA INTERNET.

Yet, I can’t since I am somewhat of a cripple currently. I could call my friends and ask what’s up but instead I am checking their Facebook pages and Twitters.

Why is it that when we aren’t forced to engage in face-face contact, we turn to being lazy and “creeping” on the Internet?

I’ve also always wondered what would happen if Y2K DID happen…but completely unknowingly. I would like to think we would be resourceful enough to make it through it and perhaps change societies for the better and make us a more face-to-face humanity rather than a face-to-computer humanity.