I fell

Not metaphorically from Grace or anything that poetic. I just fell. Walking my dogs on a gravelly dirt road, the stones and pebbles like ball bearings beneath my feet. Hiking shoes didn't make a difference. I fell fast and hard like love at first sight only this was nothing like that. If I was a cartoon (aren't we all kind of a cartoon? Or at least cartoonish?) you would've seen the banana peel under my foot. I smashed down on my left knee and elbow and bounced back up, weeble-like, as fast as I went down.

Two hikers ahead of me turned abruptly, "¿Estás bien?"

"Yes, yes, totally fine! Bien, bien, gracias!"

What is it about falling that makes us so instantly embarrassed? I mean, it was an accident. I fell. Shit happens. Saving face for something faces don't need to be saved from. Although a bruise did appear hours later on my cheek. Turns out I smashed my fist into my own face but didn't realize it at the time reminiscent of when my bestie and I rode the Cyclone and a bruise developed on my cheek part-way through my first real New York date later that evening. Also reminiscent of the time I was in a head-on car crash and the egg on my forehead blossomed later that evening. Pattern?

So yeah, I was embarrassed.

But what is even more embarrassing is my reaction to falling and smashing myself. Here's a re-enactment of my mind chatter the instant after I turned away from the hikers ahead of me, tears smarting at the corner of my eyes, scraped knee and elbow stinging, licking my wounds as I headed for home, walk immediately abandoned:

"Omg. OMG! Fuck that. I can't believe I just fell. I think I broke my collarbone. OMG, did I break my collarbone for the 4th time? I did. I must have. Now I have to go to the hospital. I'm going to catch Covid. The weather has just been getting nicer and now I will be in a brace for 6 weeks lying on the couch. I've spent the last two fucking years lying on the couch. My already noodle-y body will continue to wither away. I'll NEVER get strong again. I have the WORST luck ever. There's ALWAYS something wrong with me. Now I'm old and can't fucking do anything anymore ever. Why did I have to fall? I'm a good person? Aren't we hosting a Ukrainian family? Surely that should keep me in good cosmic stead? WHY ME?"

There's so much garbage in there it's hard to disentangle the ludicrous from the ridonculous. Of course breaking out the the Always/Never is a clear indication of warped thinking. I at least know this. But I don't still know why I have to immediately freak out and turn the fall into a philosophical tome about the meaning of random acts. Like an old-testament god-dude is meting out punishments. Curses to you (fist pumping), my Catholic upbringing!

Turns out I didn't break my collarbone but I came home and cried about it all the same. The most humiliating thing was that I was crying about something that could've happened that didn't happen, all while a young Ukrainian family was in our home, because theirs had been ruined. They arrived with backpacks and passports and nothing else. If anybody has the right to question, Why me?, surely it is them and all others impacted by war. Not me, crying about something that never was.