Accidents and Anxiety Meet

I am walking to the park on Bear Street about a half mile from my house. In my blue Eddie Bauer back pack I am carrying my roller blades and wrist guards. * I have not been on the blades since 2007 when I had a fall free trip up the lake shore in Chicago.


I blade around the park a few times…it is smaller than it appeared when I walked by it on my way home from the Nordstrom Rack. I am getting a little bored with going in circles. Maybe I should blade home? Maybe I shouldn't.  Remember that time your were with Bernice and she fell...she had PT for like 6 months?  I am doing pretty well. I have never fallen before. Plus, I have medical insurance. ** So, I head down Bear when I reach one problem I had not factored in when I reasoned to roll home…an intersection. Stopping has never really been forte. Crap. Ok, I can do this.

Bam! My legs slip from underneath me and fly into the air. I am falling. I am falling on my ass at the intersection of Bear and Paularino. Instinctively, I employ my guarded wrists to save me from further physical injury—the mental damage of landing on my butt and knowing that passersby are laughing at me cannot be undone. Hell, I would laugh too—falling is funny.

One car, one, at the intersection inquires if I am okay. I say yes but in truth my butt and wrists really ache. Shaken, I remove the blades and the guards and I walk home.

“Mom, I fell on my butt at an intersection on my roller blades.”

“You fell?” She asks. I think I hear her concealing a giggle—again, falling is funny.

“Yep, full on classic legs in the air ass on the ground fall.”

“Are you ok?”

“Well, my tailbone*** hurts and I think I sprained my wrist.”

“Did you have wrist guards?”

“Yes, thank God, otherwise I would be in serious trouble.”

“Where was your helmet?”

“I don’t have a helmet.”

“You need a helmet. Daddy fell on a bike ride and the last thing he remembers is the sound of his helmet skidding on the pavement.”

Always a ray of sunshine, she was right. What if it had been my head and not my ass that hit the ground first?

Truth be told, given that I am sorta injury prone I have no right rolling down a busy street. I used to blade all the time in my twenties with no thought about the dangers. No concern of harming myself.

A few months ago, I was walking down the stairs at my office and making a telephone call when my 3 inch heal caught on the step forcing me forward. I used the handrails to catch myself and re-assembled my blackberry.

That near trip had two outcomes. First, I cannot walk down the stairs and talk on the phone at the same time. Second, I am afraid of falling.

I watch children run up and down stairs—sometimes two or three at a time—free of any concern. I was like that as a child too. When did falling become scary? Given my natural low-grade anxiety, I now approach each stair with precision.

Reading Anne Marie Schlekeway’s blog Kiss My ALS this morning brought my whole anxiety into perspective. She wrote of a recent fall:

So I walked into my home and with in 5 minutes did a face plant into the carpet! Complete with rug burns on my face, under my left eye. UGH.


I felt my neck crack as I hit the ground …I hit the floor with my right knee and left cheekbone and temple and for the 1st time thought, “I wonder if it’s time for life alert?” I had had my phone in my hand so it was near me, and as I did a mental checklist feeling my body from the inside out to see if there was a serious injury…

I am blessed to have a strong, healthy body, which it would behoove me to take care of and enjoy. So I will still approach stairs with caution—just a smart thing to do—but I will not let the worry grip me in my daily activities.

Since I moved, I started a yoga class and have been researching cross-country skiing****. I might even buckle up those roller blades and tackle the safe confines of Still Water Creek Condominiums—where the smooth streets are wide and the speed limit is 20 MPH.*****

*A big shout out to Mrs. McLaughlin for buying them for me as a gift after she saw me rolling down Moulton Avenue sans wrist guards in 1994.


**The new rule of thumb is stay away from activities where that consideration is a deal breaker.


***I broke my tailbone in High School and for three months had to carry a powder blue, inflatable donut for anal discomfort. I might as well have been the annoying girl who starts her stories with, “One time at band camp….”

****Choosing that over leaning to Luge....let's not push it.


*****I will buy a helmet to be on the safe side.