I fell out of my above-ground pool yesterday and it wasn’t pleasant. While I was falling I felt as if I would never hit the ground but would just continue plummeting into oblivion. But that didn’t happen; instead I hit the ground and yelled!
I have not fully recovered from that fall, which was one of my worst. Oh yes, this isn’t the first time I’ve fallen. I tend to do a lot of it, and today, as I tended my wounds from yesterday, I got to thinking, “Is it me or do people just fall a lot and not tell anyone?” At any rate, this must be why I am so terrified when anyone gets close to the edge of anything, like a cliff or the side of a mountain or anything you can fall off of. Things like that make me anxious. It would not happen to me because I never go near the edge of anything, whether it is man-made or made by nature. Cliffs, hills, bridges, and Grand Canyons, I always stay well enough back that if I do fall I won’t go over the edge and plunge into the abyss.
I know, it’s crazy, isn’t it? The first fall I can remember occurred when I was about four or five. I had gone to see some land that my uncle had bought. I was with my Dad and my uncle and my brothers. I remember having a great time until we were about to leave and I was running to the car when I fell and just about knocked all my teeth out. I yelled then too and cried and my Dad picked me up, dusted me off and told me to stop blubbering. “You just have a little cut on your knee,” he said to me. Oh, just a little cut, with the blood gushing out of the wound, nothing serious. I walked back to the car trying not cry, my leg a bloody mess and me wishing that I hadn’t come on the stupid trip in the first place.
Yes, where was the concern and care for me when I fell and hurt myself? Maybe that’s why I fall so much – I’m looking for sympathy. Could I be that desperate? I don’t think so. Maybe I’m just clumsy, or maybe this tendency to fall is normal.
I have taken several falls over the years. Falls with friends are always fun. My friend Donna and I were doing the things most kids do after school in the winter – throwing snowballs, sliding on the ice and pushing each other into snowbanks. Well, my push led to a fall and Donna and I went down. I was fine but Donna unfortunately broke her leg. I never lived that one down. For years after whenever I saw Donna’s Dad he would bring up this somewhat embarrassing incident. I really didn’t mean to hurt Donna; it just happened that her leg was obviously more delicate than I thought. I’m glad Donna didn’t tell her Dad about how we fell riding our bikes to school one day. And we fell in front of all the high school kids which made it that much more embarrassing. I think I can speak for Donna here too that falling while a whole group of high school kids laugh at you is far worse than falling and breaking a leg.
No matter how old I am I never never seem to suffer any adverse effects from my falling. I have never had a broken bone or sprain or serious injury from falling.
One of the most terrifying falls I ever had was when I fell off a ski lift at Mt. Tremblant in the Laurentions north of Montreal. It was a beautiful winter day and my friend Al and I were taking a ski day. We had some good runs and were about to embark on yet another when something happened to me as I was getting off the lift. Somehow I managed to end up falling off the ramp instead of skiing down the ramp. I fell backwards into the chasm instead of skiing forward down the hill. I seemed to fall for a long time before I hit snow. It was scary. Al, having witnessed the whole thing could be heard all over the hills up north laughing, crying even, she was laughing so hard. I later returned the favor when she skied into a tree! She wasn’t hurt but if you had seen it you would have laughed as well!
Thinking about it now I wonder how I have managed to live as long as I have. Dumb luck, I guess.
Thankfully I have never had any head injuries either. I have taken a lot of falls in my driveway. They say the most likely place for you to have an accident is in or around your own home. One day as I was leaving for work on yet another clear winter day I walked out the garage door and “Boom” – I hit a patch of ice and went down.
I don’t know about you but now that I have experienced several falls I have a routine to them. Once I fall I scream, curse and then just lie there for a while looking up at the sky. It seems most falls I end up on my backside. While I stare at the sky my mind goes through all the parts of my body to make sure they are still working. Once that is done I feel it’s safe to get up. This assessment usually takes less than 10 minutes but it’s worth taking the time to make sure you don’t get up and fall down again because of a broken bone somewhere.
Once when my husband dropped me off at work in the morning I got out of the car, shut the door and then just wiped out, right there beside the car. Luckily my husband did not drive off but got out to make sure I was okay. By the time he got around to the other side of the car the yelling part of my routine was over and I was just doing my assessment. My husband helped me up and off I went to work.
What’s the moral of this story? I am not sure there is one; I just felt I should share these life events, like falling down, that put us in precarious positions. And it’s funny too how most of my falls have been private falls. Nobody else has been around to witness a lot of them. I am famous for falling in parking lots, at work or in shopping centers, ice being the major factor there. Winters are tough on those of us who fall a lot.
Then there are those numerous falls I have suffered after partaking of the evil “drink“! Running in heels and drinking wine can only result in a bad outcome for someone such as myself. Take for instance the two falls I had at a Foo Fighter Concert. I won’t go into the whole evening here but let me just say here that not an ounce of wine was wasted in either fall!
I hope that if you do fall you’ll remember you are not alone. There are plenty of us out here who know your pain. Make sure to do your assessment before you get up; that is critical as you don’t want to get up if you’ve broken something. As the famous commercial says, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” You don’t want that to happen; the goal is to always get back on your feet.
So consider this piece as not only about falling in the literal sense but also in a far more existential sense. We will all fall down over the course of our existence; the question is will we have the wherewithal and the tenacity to get back up?
Image Credit
“Falling Down?” by Kristin Kokkersvold. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reserved.
I had a good belly laugh over this Martha as I found myself in the same predicament yesterday! I had stepped in a hole in the garden (which I had just finished digging) and the world tipped over very quickly. As I laid there, my first thoughts were “I hope no one saw that” and then I wondered how many ribs, shoulders and hips had been broken on the landscape ties on which I had managed to fall. I told my husband later that I was getting old and was tipping over more often – I’ve had less injuries from skydiving that I’ve had from wiping out in my own back yard! Anyway, thanks for sharing Martha – it’s reassuring to know I’m not the only one out there who unwittingly ends up face down or face up once in awhile.
Well done, indeed. I enjoyed this immensely!