Year 2, Day 79: 11/29/12

The Things that Haunt Us.  It's amazing to me when I think about the memories that haunt me.  I remember some of the smallest things - things that would be inconsequential to most people.  But to me, they linger and fester and I can't shake the memories. Today, it was the memory of all of the times I've fallen down (literally, fallen down).  I remember falling as I came home from work while I was in high school.  It was raining and I was rushing to get into the house and slipped and fell on the gravel.  I cried like a baby for that one because I felt so stupid and klutzy.  I remember when I fell playing softball (when I played for Pepsi).  I was running from 2nd to 3rd and just tripped over my own big feet.  I remember when I fell running home after hitting a homerun during practice.  I was just going too fast to control my own weight and fell.  I remember knocking my friend Angie down during a fire drill at the University of Oklahoma.  There was ice on the sidewalks and as I slipped I grabbed Angie - I really felt stupid that day.  I remember falling as I was crossing the street in Chattanooga while leaving school after my class.  I fell and my books went flying right in front of four lanes of moving traffic.  I remember the first time I fell when I was running - I was nearly done with my run around the UTK campus and I tripped over an upraised section in the sidewalk and hit the ground hard.  I followed that up with a trip over my own feet about three weeks later - same area of my run but it was closer to the beginning rather than the end.  Messed up my knee, hand and elbow.  I fell again running when I lived in Raleigh, on the running trail around the lake.  That's all...yes, I remember all of those and they linger in my memories, reminding me of how ungraceful I am, how much of a klutz.  I use those reminders as a way to bring myself down from cloud 9 when I start to think that I have something to offer anyone.  Who would want to be around someone as klutzy as I am?  Just another strike against me.