An Essay

WOW, I haven't posted in quite some time. For my last class as a grad student, I'm taking a Creative Non-Fiction Class. Here is a draft of the first essay I've written...enjoy my awkwardness :)

Clumsy (awkward in movement or action; without skill or grace)

Lying on my bed, petting my littlest cat Kia, I smell the patchouli wax I’m burning. Ah, relaxation…I swing my leg around and my foot catches a full diet soda can and knocks it to the ground, all over the carpet and my dirty clothes basket. Not again, I thought, why am I so damn clumsy? Then I proceeded to clean it up, put the clothes in the washer, and go about my day. To say I am clumsy is an absolute understatement, as this kind of situation happens to me on a daily, if not more often, basis.

            Fergie, a well-known pop star who was super popular in the mid 2000’s, sings a song called Clumsy. While watching the video for her song, all I could think is I certainly don’t look like her when I’m “trippin, stumblin, flippin, fumblin” that is for sure. Nor are there a bunch of guys hanging around to help me after I’ve stumbled my way into dropping my phone in a glass of water, which by the way, I’ve done twice in my life time. Another band, Our Lady Peace, has a song called Clumsy. The lyrics to this song use Clumsy in a different way, yet it ultimately means the same thing (see definition). Oddly enough, throughout their entire video there is randomly a glass full of water being spilled. That I can relate to…

            A day before the soda can incident, I was getting out of my car trying to carry entirely too many things (I always try not to take a bag from the store, yet I never remember my cloth bags from home). I also had a fountain drink in my hand, but not for long. It slipped, the snow turned the color of a coke slurpee, and I shut the car door. I’ve learned to shrug off this type of thing. I’d be a pretty angry person if I didn’t.

            There are many synonyms for the word clumsy. My favorite is unwieldy which is defined by Dictionary.com as “not wieldy; wielded with difficulty; not readily handled or managed in use or action; as from size shape or weight; awkward; ungainly.” The key word in that definition for me is “awkward”. That’s me. Saying things some deem inappropriate, although often true. Randomly running into walls, furniture, and really any inanimate object that’s in my general area. Spilling liquids, all the time. If I am wearing white when my boyfriend and I are about to go out to dinner he often politely suggests that white might not be a good idea. I don’t listen and usually that white shirt isn’t worn again. Red wine is a bitch.

            YouTube has so many videos related to the word clumsy. Clumsy cats, clumsy elephants, The Ellen Show has a segment called Clumsy Thumbsy about funny autocorrects, but mostly clumsy animals. And people. Lots of clumsy people. The relief of knowing there are others like me is tremendous…but really, sure these people have a clumsy moment and it got caught on video, but they have no idea what’s it’s like to live in my clumsy world.

            The summer going into my freshman year of high school, some friends were over while my dad was at work. My friend Josh opened the fridge and saw a beer mixed in with the other beverages. He grabbed it, I yelled for him to put it back, he ran outside, I chased him, he ran back up the porch stairs, and I did too, but he shut the door and I tripped and put my arm right through the glass of the door. Shards of glass were sticking up and out of my arm. I walked to my grandparents’ house the next block over and was taken to the emergency room. Stitches were needed, but I was more worried about getting in trouble for the door. I don’t remember if I got in trouble for the door, but I do remember not being surprised by the fact that I put my arm through a window. I remember my dad not being surprised either. Clumsy, indeed.

            Awkward and clumsy go hand and hand. In my case it’s the awkwardness of me spilling something everywhere, or of me falling down out of nowhere with tons of people around, or my favorite, running into random things and apologizing to those things. “I’m sorry chair, I didn’t see you there.” “I’ve been here for six years.” That’s how I imagine the chair would reply. I wondered if other people did this, so naturally I went straight to Google. Search: do other people apologize to inanimate objects? Results: 484,000. There is a Facebook Community page titled “I Apologize To Inanimate Objects When I bump Into Them” with 16,877 likes. It appears I am not alone in this clumsy lifestyle.

            Three years ago to the date I am writing this essay my Facebook status was “Seriously fell in the same spot as Thursday only this time it was mud. Came home, didn’t go to classes, and will now write a couple of papers. I am going to pretend this day never happened and start over tomorrow!!!” I know this because of the awesome app, TimeHop, that let’s me know exactly what I was doing up to five years prior. So I will always have fantastic proof of my utter lack of coordination because, apparently, I enjoy documenting my clumsiness.

            This clumsiness I’ve endured my entire life. When I was eight years old, I went to a roller skating birthday party. I’d never been on roller skates before because, well, I was scared I would hurt myself, which I did. By the end of the party I had fallen down in between the rails that I was pushing myself out of the rink with and snapped both of my collarbones in half. Both of them! At the same time. Even at eight years old, I could barely keep it together. Two years later, while walking to school, I slipped on some ice hidden under snow and fractured my right foot. I was in a cast for almost a month. I had to sit out of basketball that year. I played sports, so I’ve suffered many twisted ankles from randomly falling down or tripping, or doing something else incredibly embarrassing.

BuzzFeed has an article titled “19 Struggles Clumsy People Know Far to Well”. Many things on the list could be checked off for me. Constantly dropping things, check. Constantly running into things, check. Dropping my phone everyday, check. Tripping over anything, check. But my favorite was number 19 – The best part is, you’ve learned to own it.

            Owning my clumsy self didn’t happen over night. The embarrassment of constantly spilling whatever I was drinking or eating didn’t just disappear. But, eventually I was able to accept the fact that just about anything I do will have an element of clumsy. Especially conversation. I am a talker, yet more often than not, I end up fumbling over my words. Like walking down the street and tripping over a rock, my words sometimes trip over themselves. Usually this happens when I am debating something with someone. I’ll have a point, it’ll make complete sense in my head, but once I say the words aloud, I sound like an asshole. It’s not because my point didn’t make a good one (although sometimes it doesn’t), but because I present my ideas in the most awkward of ways. In my first class as a graduate student, we were discussing language and the way people communicate. I’m not sure how it came up, but I mentioned “Ebonics”. It went something like this, “Well, if people didn’t use Ebonics…” Everyone looked at me and one of the other students said, “What is this, the 80’s?” I wasn’t trying to be offensive, nor did I mean what I said to come out sounding like it did, but that’s what happened. Eventually, I’m sure it was forgotten by my classmates, but I’ll never forget how ridiculous I felt!

            Feeling ridiculous is a daily occurrence for me. I work from my home and rarely have to leave, but somehow I manage to work in a stubbed toe, or a bruised hand, or I’ll trip over the carpet at least once a day. Every shirt I own eventually ends up being used for sleeping because after so long, the stains don’t come out. I’ve often considered wearing a bib, but then I figure it would just add to my daily embarrassment. “Hi, I’m the 30 something that still wears a bib”. Probably not the best way to keep a low profile, which is hard enough to do when I can barely walk in public without falling on my face!

            Whether I am walking, talking, sitting, or eating awkwardness is part of my daily struggle. Struggle being used loosely, has being clumsy isn’t exactly the end of the world, although who knows, someday I could trip over something and start the slow progression of the apocalypse. Then maybe someone will write a song titled Clumsy about me! Until then, I’ll keep living my life, one step and one word at a time.