I’m clumsy. Incredibly clumsy. I’ve struggled with it my whole life - not quite sure why. Quit dance class before I got the basics down? Maybe. I’ve tripped over a cinder block while wearing a skirt (first date), I’ve fallen out of my shoes during the high school graduation procession (sorry Todd) and I’ve fallen off my shoes during a dash to the door in a rainstorm (Another first date. Different guy.) It’s not that I walk around running into walls or anything I just, often, find myself losing my footing and taking a tumble.
There was an incident in the summer of '93. It was summertime and I was out celebrating life with friends (I was drunk) and I decided to leap off the railroad tracks down onto the grassy slope below. What I didn’t know, and wouldn’t realize until I made contact, was that there was a railroad tie hidden in the grass. I nearly made it but, when it came time to stick the landing, all was lost. My foot hit the edge of the railroad tie and my ankle rolled 90 degrees to the side. The pain was instantaneous and the regret immediate. Alcohol, miracle elixer that it is, prevented the real pain from making itself known at that moment but it would come.
The next morning I woke to a throbbing, screaming pain in my ankle that would not be ignored. I looked down at my ankle (left ankle - that might be important later) and saw it had swollen to the size of a small melon. It was pretty gross. Sobbing hysterically I crawled into my Mom’s room for assistance. Went to the ER and numerous visits after that while wearing a walking cast. As a direct result of that fall my ankle has never been the same. Ever. The injury is what brought about my "I will never ice skate again" declaration.
I digress. Back to the fall from yesterday. Zoe is horrified yet laughing hysterically. I’m pretty horrified too, but decidely not laughing. Thank God the alarm wasn’t activated in that Jeep. If it had been turned on the thing would have started screaming in my ears while I tried to get back in my car. Zoe and I had gone out for sushi and as we headed for the car, I made a miscalculation in stepping off the curb. My ankle (right one this time - Yay!) gave way. I felt my other (useless) ankle give as well and I could feel myself going down. But. There was a beautiful, new, champagne colored Jeep parked next to my car. My hand shot out, instinctively, and smacked the hood of the Jeep, scrambling for purchase. I bounced off the Jeep then spun into the side of my car, grabbing the side mirror for balance. While I’m sure it only took 3 seconds, it felt like everything was happening in slow motion and that the entire population of the Busch’s parking lot was witnessing the fall. The minute it happened I knew it would be bad. You know how you can just feel something like that? I struggled to get into the car as did Zoe, but she struggled more because she couldn’t stop laughing (nice, right?)… I told her we needed to get home before my foot swelled up so much that we couldn’t get the shoe off (not my first rodeo). I will pay for this tomorrow.
I remember a friend once told me that my self-proclaimed clumsiness was not, in fact, actual clumsiness. She said my frequent falls indicated that I was athletic, not clumsy and that I wasn’t afraid to move my body about which is why I fell a lot. I don’t know about that. If the US gymnastics team was as “athletic” as me there would be piles of them laying on the gymnasium floor in bandages. It would look like a MASH unit or that one scene in Gone With the Wind. The point is that my well-intentioned friend (Hi Kate!) loved me enough to tell me lies. The end.
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