Falling girl returns from hiatus

My freshman year of college I received the nickname "falling girl."

Within hours of moving into my dorm room on campus, I was harangued into going roller-skating. I hadn't been on skates in years, and the propensity I have for nesting left me more inclined to stay in my dorm room unpacking. But in the spirit of making new friends, I let myself be convinced to join in on the fun.

It was fun for a while. I found my skating legs and joyfully rolled along on the rink as whatever pop song blared through the speakers. Then all of a sudden I found my face smacking against the floor below me. I was stunned. I was embarrassed. I was on the ground. I picked myself up and slinked off the rink. I realized my mouth was bleeding, but my ego was more bruised than anything. But when a new song came on that I liked, I decided to go back out on the rink. I know now that that was a mistake.

Within seconds of returning to the rink, an adolescent boy rammed into the back of me. He cut me off as he tried to regain his balance, his skate hit mine, and I knew I was going down...again. There was no avoiding it. I tried to fall gracefully to avoid hurting myself. But instead my knee popped out and then back in as I proceeded to fall on it. The pain was immense. Maintaining my dignity was no longer an option. I was on the floor, and I was hurt. Tears streamed down my face as an employee helped me up, and I limped off the rink.

I was brought out of Jelly Beans on a stretcher. I waited in the emergency waiting room for close to 8hrs. I was told I would be all right in about ten days - I had bruised the bone and the tendon.

4 days later, as I limped to my 8am history class, I crossed my college's free expression tunnel. I saw a cute boy and smiled. In my preoccupation, I neglected to pay due attention to the rain grate in my path. My flip-flop clipped the lip of cement and I hurled forward, falling on my injured knee. I managed to fling my water bottle across the tunnel, and I remember seeing it strike a girl in the back of the head. She kept walking. I continued falling. The cute boy stopped to see if I was okay. I choked back tears and assured him I was. Minutes later I wandered into my history class with a bloody, scraped knee and tear-streaked cheeks.

Are you noticing a pattern?

A few months later I fell up a flight of stairs in the student center on campus. My chin hit a stair, and my pink lemonade spilled all over. The onlooker who came to check on me couldn't tell if I was crying or laughing. I was doing a little of both.

Until recently, I hadn't really fallen until the night at the grad student Winter Ball. I blamed that on my drunkenness and continued to believe that perhaps my propensity for falling is conditional on being in North Carolina.

I was wrong.

My first night in Budapest, I drunkenly tried to make it down the steps of a loft in our rented apartment. The stairs (as you see in the picture) were a bit steep and narrow. On the second or third step, I lost my footing and continued to the bottom on my rear end. I landed in a heap as Enigma and Inquisitor rushed to my side. I laughed briefly, and then drunkenly tried to assess the situation. I had to decide how badly I had hurt myself. I sat there, crying, eyes closed, breathing rapidly for about twenty minutes. I would not answer Enigma or Inquisitor’s questions. I am okay but have been discovering nasty bruises ever since. The next morning, Enigma said, “Not to freak you out or anything…but you really scared me. You could have died.”

The falling does not end there.

Last night I headed out to Common Ground with Vixen and Blue Devil. Seconds after Blue Devil had collided with me as the T came to a screeching halt, I made my way down the T steps and stepped onto the sidewalk. But for some reason my heel decided to lodge itself on one of the sidewalk nodules, and I lurched forward. Falling girl struck again. I now have matching hip bruises and scuffed up hands.

At the bar I realized that my iPod was killed in the process - may it rest in peace.

Others have joked, but I am seriously considering getting myself some type of bubble suit to walk around in. Otherwise, my walking privileges are soon to be revoked, because if there is a way to hurt myself, I will find it.

Let’s hope that I don’t end up rolling around in (another) ditch like a Beckett character.

Bad sitcom folks…bad sitcom.