Oops! Down for the count!

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girl_falling_down_It happened again this morning. What are the odds of a small skinny purse strap catching on a door lever? When it comes to me the odds are very high. Very high indeed!

I am drawn to anything that will make me lose my balance. If I was trying to lasso a stationery horse on a carousel, I couldn’t do it. If I am racing through a room you can bet something will get snagged and I will end up on the floor.

A lawn chair sitting all by itself is an obstacle course for me. We have an outdoor rocking chair and I can’t count the times I wacked myself with the blunt rocker that juts out wherever I want to walk. I swear it has a life of its own and moves when it sees me.

We have two new trees with guide wires. Yep, I have tripped over both multiple times. I know exactly where they are but that hasn’t helped. Of course when I trip I always land on the ground. Always. And it’s not a graceful fall.

Imagine a person with their arms and legs flailing aimlessly while they go down for the count. I’m not getting invited to join a dance troupe any time soon.

When I was younger I could catch myself but agility has gone the way of firm skin and well…you get the idea. I spend considerable time on the ground these days. So far I’ve only wounded my pride along with skinned shins and boo-boo knees.

I don’t considered myself accident prone although I can’t walk near lawn furniture or guide wires or coffee tables. I may be a little klutzy. Just a little.

girl with drinks falling-picgifs

So far I haven’t spilled a drink!

I have friends who are disasters waiting to happen. I’m not one of them. At least I wasn’t. Now, well….maybe…Is it contagious?

Are you clumsy or graceful? Can you catch yourself without falling all the way down? Does this run in families?

 

 

 

68 thoughts on “Oops! Down for the count!”

  2. Kate … I trip over dust. I walk into chairs and columns. Then, I apologize to these inanimate objects. There is absolutely no reason for my clumsiness except I’m usually day dreaming or distracted.

    Hope you’re feeling better. 😉

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  4. What a great post! A long time ago (during that sensitive teenage stage) I was walking past our kitchen door which had a high door knob…. the door knob got caught in the armhole of my nightie and as I continued walking my nightie remained hanging from the knob! How mortified I was to find myself basically naked in front of some visiting neighbours! That memory is probably 40 years old now but it still haunts me and was the beginning of a lifetime of similar unfortunate “incidents”.

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    • OMG! I would have been mortified! (We didn’t do naked in our house at all) I have ripped jackets when the pockets caught and got yanked when I wanted to continue walking and my clothes didn’t but I never ended up naked.

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  5. I’m pretty sure the grace of balance is primarily genetic, enhanced by practice. But when someone is born without the balance gene, there’s not much hope for transformation.

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      • What I mean is, most people who are exceptionally graceful aren’t they way because they worked hard at it; they just have it (they’re the movement version of natural singers).

        But I’m wondering — maybe these trips and bumps of yours have little to do with lack of grace, but rather with distraction. I’ve been prone to moving through an environment without all of my senses tuned in to the physical surroundings. THAT is changeable.

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        • I think it’s a combination of the two. I have more incidents when I am in a hurry but even when I am trying to be cool and walking leisurely, it happens. The big difference between now and when I was younger is that I could catch myself before going all the way down. Nowadays, it’s more likely I’ll end up on the ground.

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  6. Oh my sister! Yes indeed! There is no end to my stories of “slips, trips and falls.” I don’t know what it is, but I scare my family half to death. It’s hard enough to be the one hitting the ground, but according to them, it’s equally scary to watch me do it! Be safe!!

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  7. I don’t usually fall but manage to get pretty banged up anyway – running into things. It would be nice if you could claim this tendency to “fly” is genetic.

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  8. I don’t mean to compete but, I trip at least once a day and sometimes fall like a rodeo clown. I blame it on my ear issues, but then again, I fell a lot before. We might just move too fast. Just now I banged my knee on the side of the tub…OUCH…it’s just a trait we must have Kate. Clanging. Love the photos.

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  9. There has to be a middle ground between clumsy and graceful. Given my high center of gravity, I’m pretty good at staying vertical. However, no one would mistake me for Gene Kelly.

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  11. I recently started going to a freebie tai chi class and the instructor, who is probably in her 70s, stresses that these movements help you remain more stable and less likely to fall. As your core strengthens perhaps balance improves. I don’t know for sure; I’ve only gone to two classes.

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    • I have heard that tai chi is good for balance. I want to try when I can find a class. I also want to try yoga although I’m not sure I my balance is enough for it.

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  12. The first fall I remember was in high school. I was dancing with the best dancer in the school. He twirled me, and I twirled all the way to the ground. Everyone marveled at my graceful fall. Now, at my age, I worry about broken bones. (My mom had terrible osteoporosis. I have osteopenia.) My first broken bone was a toe–barefoot, a toe caught on a chair leg. I fell in a 4-ft.-deep hole in a field once and broke my wrist. It was a test hole for a septic system that never got filled and was covered with weeds and vines. I broke my other wrist a few years later. Needless to say, I make a real effort now to be careful.

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  13. I’m clumsy. The other day I was walking my dog. It was a lovely morning and for reasons I still don’t know, I “took a flier.” That’s what my dad used to call it, anyway. Suddenly, for no descernable reason I went airborne. I landed in the mud on all fours. Duncan thought it was a game and pushed me the rest of the way down into the mud when he jumped on me. Thankfully, it was Friday and not Monday or r I would have been even more unhappy!

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  16. We have furniture that waits and jumps out in front of me….See crocs have a big function here: rubber bumpers.
    Then there’s the crack in the ground during the summer…(with luck no fire ant beds nearby. Additional points if hit on of those after stumbling over nothing…)

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  17. My mother always says I’m like a “bull in a china shop.” I admit, I often move way to fast and don’t pay attention to my surroundings. I have the bruises and multiple broken bones to show for it. In my next life, I’ll be graceful and delicate. 🙂

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  18. I hate to say I’m graceful, but secretly I think so. My husband is always trying to hold me when we are walking on icy spots – he likes to be chivalrous – but he’s the one who always falls. So I make him keep his distance.

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    • You are so smart! When I fractured my kneecap, I came down the steps on my butt and went up with crutches. Once you turn 40 or so, you should be on one floor.

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  20. I can relate. Sometimes I think I must be the clumsiest person on the face of the earth, constantly tripping, running into things, dropping objects…

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  21. Just a few weeks into my relationship with my now husband… when I was doing my best to appear flawless and irresistible, I somehow got my feet tangled up in an over-long telephone cord. Next thing I knew I was flat on the floor staring up at the man of my dreams. He eventually married me anyway.

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  22. I’m on Team Clumsy. We had our kitchen remodeled over 5 years ago. One of the changes was the placement of the dishwasher. Yet after all these year I STILL hit my shin on the dishwasher door when it is open. Can’t seem to remember that the dishwasher is where it is now.

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  23. Glad to hear it was a minor event.

    My darling dad used to claim that I had the “grace of an elephant” which was meant to be disparaging. Thanks, Pa.

    So yeah, any time I stumble, tumble, stump or bump, the shame from childhood comes hurtling back. In short, I can relate.

    What gets me though, is this: how fast are we walking, anyway, when we accidentally connect with a door jamb, for instance, and it hurts like bloody hell? Are knuckles super-sensitive or something? Or is there some sort of compounding effect of woman on a mission against cabinetry?

    I’ve also snagged purse straps on the most inconspicuous jutting-out thing-y and have been stopped in my tracks. My initial impulse is rage – the kind you get when you wallop your head on an open cabinet door or the range hood over the burners.

    I suppose the one solution is to stop spending time in the kitchen. Hm. Food for thought.

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  24. Colossal faller, stair tripper, bum-snagger and toe stubber. I also bruise really easily. Explaining my various bruises is like trying to recite the Declaration of Independence verbatim. Not happening.

    Hope you are ok!!

    MJ

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  25. I’ve always been more than a little bit annoyed that my name (Nancy) actually means “grace”.

    ha ha ha ha ha ha ha – joke’s on me. I’m so clumsy, that I could probably be a millionaire by now if I had been placing bets on how often Murphy’s law would apply to me. I’ve applied all sorts of positive thoughts and half-full tactics, but truthfully, I’m constantly tripping or bumping or ripping the pockets out of my clothes as they catch on door handles. I mean, what’s the chances? That I’m exactly tall enough for the pockets of my dress to catch on every door handle or kitchen drawer pull? Apparently, the chances are excellent, since it happens ALL THE TIME. 🙂

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  26. Ha! Me, I go down with all the grace of a very large sack of spuds thrown by a burly stevedore off a very high loading platform! With increasing frequency. Since an incident in 1999 involving a long skirt, concrete stairs in a commercial building and a tired me, I am now the woman you note standing at the top of a stairwell, gripping the hand rail and taking a nervous breath before beginning a careful and tentative descent. I have risen from my desk and found myself running at great speed straight for the office wall on several occasions, stepped from my car only to pick myself up from the gravel moments later and even gotten out of bed to surprisingly find myself with no muscles in my legs whatsoever. There are bruises ……..

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