I Slipped

Winter has arrived. And I stayed inside.

Yes, if you were on the East Coast, you were hunkered in on Saturday against the blustery winds and “blizzard” conditions. Then, when you emerged, you had to dig yourself out of the snow or just dig yourself out of your front door by sifting through all of the food wrappers you had snowed yourself in with.

And frankly, no one was ready to go back to “normal life” after that.

So, enter me and my busy Monday schedule. I’m trying to get everything together early so that I have enough time to get to work on time because I have to account for black ice, traffic, and idiots. (Fair warning, idiots are out in every weather, so be vigilant.)

But I’m late, as usual. And I’m frustrated, since it’s Monday. And I’m not really paying attention.

And I can quite literally feel the frown on my face, the tension in my brows. But why would I notice that?

Because I felt it all change when I walked out onto my front porch: and I slipped. I didn’t fall, but I lost my footing and my arms went way out to the side. And I laughed immediately. Maybe because I didn’t fall. Maybe because of how I must have looked to people driving down the street.

But I’d like to think that it was the release of everything in myself. I stopped taking everything so seriously. For one lighthearted moment, I could laugh and stop pretending that I could control everything. Because I obviously couldn’t. I was delightedly out of control of the situation.

I slipped, and it had the effect of a banana peel in every cartoon show–comic relief.

Now, I don’t particularly want to almost fall every day I’m upset. But for this one moment, it was an acute reminder of how I should be acting as opposed to how I was. It made me remember that I can’t always know what’s right around the corner, no matter how much I prepare.

I learned that sometimes you have to be knocked off your feet to learn your lesson. And sometimes you have to laugh at yourself to realize that you’re doing just fine.