it all started a few weeks ago. i was walking my dogs and their leashes became tangled beneath me and i came down like a chopped tree. i was trying to lift my leg and more or less hopped/tipped over and onto the ground. with a thud. and a little splash. it had been raining that day. hard. enough to make my butt wet. not sure if you know this, but wet butts are not fun.
a few days later, i almost fell walking down 3 steps in a building entrance. i was so proud of myself for avoiding catastrophe. then this past weekend i wasn’t so lucky. as i ran down the steps to catch a train, i met face first — hard concrete. my fantabulous shades were destroyed. my ankle cracked a bit (my joints crack, no biggie).
this morning it happened again. i tripped and fell. on my butt. yes it hurts, damn you. a woman walking behind me was laughing hysterically… to the point where the person i was walking with, stopped, turned around and yelled at her like she was a puppy that had just pooped on the carpet. this helped me get over some of the humiliation a bit.
falling down is traumatic , it really does affect us more than we realize. i bet if you thought about it right now, you could recall and recount the last time you fell down.
it is quite the predicament. how are we supposed to act? act like it never happened? right. when you hear someone say, “i totally busted my ass and then just played it off like nothing happened and no one even noticed!” they are lying. everyone noticed. no, that’s not paranoia talking. everyone saw you tumble in slow motion down to the floor, grasping thin air for something – anything – to keep you from falling hard.
laugh it off? while this would seem the best way, it has its negatives too. even though you are admitting that you fell and you can laugh it up with the next guy, you are still sitting there in a crumbled mess, half-kneeling with a foot tucked under your ass. besides this not being your best look, there’s always the pesky shooting pain. in places you’d forgotten could hurt. hmm. try laughing that off without breaking into real tears.
there really aren’t any solutions to falling down either. you can keep your eyes open, watch out for slippery floors, take small steps, but really keeping band aids and baby wipes handy is also recommended.. because when you get up and begin to dust yourself off, to realize afterwards that you’ve successfully smeared a handful of dogshit on yourself — this isn’t exactly less embarrassing then the actual fall itself.
class dismissed.
