A lot has happened in the interim. I've changed contracts, lost some friends (figuratively), made new ones, got a new laundry set, bought two cars... even changed my hair colour a bit.
Yesterday I totally bit it on the way to work - the picture isn't very clear but my leg looks like it was dragged along a gravel road with scratches from the top of my foot to my knee and beautiful bruise blossoming just below my ankle.
I was walking from a parking lot to the side-walk to cross the street and get to work; oh boy! I was going to be a couple of minutes early.
Bogged down with my lunch (chicken breast, salad, salad dressing and kiwi), my purse (very tiny) and my gym bag (very big) I was wearing fabulous wedge heels from Browns. Black, with suede straps, very pretty. As I left the asphalt of the parking lot I started to lose my balance. "Not a problem" I thought. "I recover from wobblies all the time" I thought. My next thought was "Oh fuck I'm falling" and I verbalized such a sentiment before I awkwardly hit the side-walk below.
I don't remember exactly how I fell but I do remember trying to maintain a sense of modestly as I was wearing what is probably too short a skirt for a 45 year old woman. My right leg is very scratched and scraped on the front and my left has a huge bruise of the outside but I somehow managed to end up on my ass. I am quite confident that in the process of falling all my womanly glory was on display for the 8,000 cars waiting at the light during the morning rush hour.
There was a woman behind me and she asked if I wanted help up. I told her I needed a moment to gather my dignity. Just seconds before that I had been upright - I wasn't really sure what happened! A moment later my friend Heather, who is expecting a baby at any moment, came rushing over from seemingly nowhere! It was probably the most bizarre three minutes in my life. She helped me gather all my various pieces of lunch, gym clothes and purse and grabbed me something to clean my leg up. It was totally covered in grime and corruption and blood. Her friend had been driving her to a park so she could walk around to speed up her labour and they happened to be driving by when I wiped out. She didn't see me fall but said she looked over because she heard a loud bang! Later I figured out it was my gym bag hitting the light post when I fell! lol
They drove me the one block to my office and I hobbled inside. I quickly learned that there isn't a first aid kit on my floor so down to the main security desk I went. They took very good care of me and the man at the desk is also an EMR so he checked it out for damage other than the superficial stuff. I am so grateful I didn't break a bone or sprain anything. It was tender and swollen yesterday but today I was able to walk on totally impractical shoes again!
When I walked back to my car last night I saw the culprit. I am the first to admit I can be a huge klutz but there is an asphalt colored piece of re-bar sticking out of the parking lot right where the asphalt ends and the gravel begins... I am only partially to blame! I have decided to carry flat shoes with me though - I really don't want to fall again. It struck me that as adults we don't do a lot of falling. When we're kids we do it a lot and some seniors really have a hard time with it, but middle aged people don't generally wipe out a lot - we're aren't so good at it anymore...
