Everyone has fears, right? I worry about like nine million things every day but I do have a couple of actual fears and I thought I would share one that plagues me often with you all today.
Many years ago when I was in rehab, I had to learn how to fall - well, not so much fall as to how to get up off the floor. Easy peasy, right? No. Not at all. It’s super hard and at this point I’ve had more practice than I would have liked. So now I have this stupid fear of falling.
It’s more of a deep rooted embarrassment knowing what happens when I fall because to me - it’s mortifying. I don’t want to brag or anything, but when I fall down, I get a lot of attention. I can’t just jump up quick and laugh it off like, ‘nothing to see here’ or ‘haha that was so funny.’ I’ve fallen several times and each time anyone else was around, it was EXACTLY the same.
Picture it: this super cute chic rolls by you, smiles (because she’s also super friendly) and then hits a bump and face plants into the cement. You want to laugh because obviously, it’s always funny when people fall, but also, she’s disabled so you don’t want to be a dick. You also want to run and help her up but, is that rude? So instead, MOSTLY EVERYONE stands around and stares while I slowly die on the floor for what feels like an eternity. Then I try to non-chalantly lift myself up from the ground in an elegant mega-dip which usually winds up being a slow process. That’s usually when someone comes over and awkwardly helps lift me off the ground. IT’S AWFUL.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m strong as fuck and can lift myself up no problem. It’s not easy but I’ve had years of practice and do it on a daily basis just to get myself around so I’m a pro. It’s just way more difficult when there’s an audience and I’m crying.
*CHALLENGE: Go sit on your floor and try to pull yourself up onto a chair without using your lower half.
Anyway, it’s not fun and it hurts my ego more than my body for sure. I still remember my first big public fall. I was at a club on Long Island and two dudes got in a fight. Before I had a chance to get out of the way, I was knocked over backwards and my legs flipped over my head. On the bright side, the fight ended. On the flip side, every single person there was staring at me. #mortifying
A few years later while on vacation with friends, one of my girls was helping me down the stairs at McDonalds (we were always a classy crew) because access was rare back then, and missed the last step. I fell face first into the sidewalk. The weird part was that I couldn’t feel anything and I was like, ‘what if I broke something and I don’t know?” so we headed to the ER for a fun filled night of X-rays. #springbreak
Most recently, I fell while coming down the ramp of my van onto the hot pavement in the middle of summer in Arizona. No one was around to help and if you’re not familiar with the desert in the summer, the pavement is hot enough to fry an egg - and a white girl’s butt. Every time I put my hands down to lift myself, it burned like a mother.
Just to redeem these embarrassing moments, I’ll also share my most badass fall - if there is such a thing: I was trying to ride my son’s quad up a very small hill a few years back. I learned about halfway up that I was too heavy for it but it was too late. The quad began rolling backwards downhill before hitting a bump and doing a backwards rollover with me on it. Luckily I fell off before it continued to roll down the hill. I had some bumps and scrapes and a busted wrist but it made for a good story later on.
So….what’s my point? I don’t really have one. Maybe treat everyone the same? If you see anyone fall it’s totally douchy to laugh but also, if you do it for one, do it for all. If you see someone fall and have trouble getting up, don’t stare, offer them a hand. If they’re crying, make sure they’re okay and then say something funny - that usually works for me :-)
Σχόλια