I Fell Down the Stairs Again

This morning, I feel like I was in a bar fight... but as the person curled into a ball, on the floor, getting kicked in the back as punches flew up top.

Look, I’m clumsy. I bump into table corners and have broken a few too many glasses/bowls. I can be found tripping over my own feet and have learned how to minimize damage when catching myself after my knee gives out. But there’s nothing that makes me feel quite as useless as a human being as not being able to walk down stairs.

I know it’s not a fair assessment of my ability to navigate different levels of a building. I manage to make is down without injury 1000:1. But those aren’t the instances that stick out.

It’s the 2 times I’ve missed those last 4 steps in the one year and one month we’ve had these particular stairs. (Note: two separate landings)

It’s the 10 minutes immediately following that instant when I set my foot down a little too far forward on the step and then I’m taking the quick way down.

It’s the first second of recognition that, yes, I did just feel those sharp edges in my back/butt. But this time, I didn’t hit my head, and I’ve stopped falling, so I’m going to be okay now….maybe.

I start to catalog the damage out of habit.

Logically, I know there isn’t a toddler standing on my chest. But I’ve just fallen down the stairs. Logic isn’t the reaction at the forefront of my mind just then. I’ve had the wind knocked out of me too many times before, but it’s never quite the same, but I don’t remember that right away. I always assume it’ll be like the time I decided it would be a good idea to drop from the monkey bars straight onto my back when I was six (sawdust was not a good enough cushion for your playground, North Bay Elementary School).

And there’s that 0.3 second moment where I wonder if maybe, this time, that horrific popping sound sound means I’ve actually broken my back. But somehow through the shallow breaths, my brain spares just enough sense to let me recognize that my limbs are, in fact, moving.

And then my brain does kick back into gear and that’s when my least favorite part comes: the crying. Not because I can’t breathe unless it’s in sharp little intakes. Not because I’m worried about the state of my spine… I’m up and walking away from the scene of the crime at that point. No, I’m crying because I’m the idiot who can’t manage stairs.

And I know it’s a stupid thing to be mad at myself for, but I can’t stop and that makes it worse. Because ability to travel the stairs, or so any other physical activity has nothing to do with intelligence. At most, I can blame myself for not paying enough attention, but my brain isn’t playing that game.

So this morning, I feel like a walking bruise--even if I have none to show for it. I’m avoiding applying pressure to the skinless patch on my elbow. And I’m considering how much it would cost to install four, narrow slides in that stairwell.