Here is a story about a girl named Alice.
All her life, Alice felt like she was living in Alice in Wonderland because she was afraid of falling into the rabbit hole. She knows that it's all in her head but that doesn’t take away the fear. She lives her life double checking everything she does and everywhere she goes. She was born with what she calls a curse, she is clumsy.
Whenever anyone meets her, they think she’s a normal 18-year-old college student, until they spend more time with her. They will go to movies with her and all they hear is shuffling because Alice has difficulty standing upright when the lights are off. Her best friend Johnny is always on the lookout, watching her every step when they are together. He has been there to witness one too many of her incidents, but he’s always there to save her. Out of all the near misses and encounters, she has three that come to mind when she thinks about her clumsiness.
The first one was her first semester of college. It was a chilly winter day and she had just finished her English class and was on her way to meet up with her friends at the library, but she had to go to her car to switch books. She had her coffee mug in one hand and she was changing the song on her phone with the other hand. On her way from the parking lot to the library, she missed the step to get to the sidewalk and her vision went gray. Her mug flew in the dirt, her phone fell right beside her and her body went forward. The next thing she knew, she was kneeling on the floor with her backpack somehow on her head. She got right back up and looked around, but just when she thought no one saw her, there was a guy is staring at her with an open mouth and concern written all over his face. She was going to be late and didn’t have time access the injuries, at least not yet. So she grabbed her belongings and met up with her friends. She laughed about the incident later on and remembers how she ended up with ripped jeans and a dented mug.
The second one was at her university auditorium. Her group of friends were all going to watch a screening of a movie, but they were going to be late because they had to work. Upon making it to the door, Alice turned around and told the group to be quiet. She walked in and was walking down the stairs when she missed the last step and she made eye contact with the carpet. She fell so fast she didn’t even know what was happening, but luckily Johnny was behind her. The skin on her palms had just touched the floor when Johnny picked her right back up. All the way to their seats she fought the urge to laugh as they were already late yet they made an even bigger entrance with Alice's fall. To this day, her friend Elizabeth still laughs since she was sitting by the stairs and witnessed the whole scene.
The final incident is one Alice can not remember herself, but the story has been told many times by Alice's mother. Alice was only a couple years old when the incident happened. Her family was sitting under the scoreboard at a baseball game, so she was on her way down to sit with her dad. She was walking down the stairs with her mom but was acting like a big girl who didn’t need her mom's hand to help her down. She should have just held her mother's hand because she tripped and ended up rolling down a couple of stairs. She cried and didn’t return to the ballpark for some time, but eventually she got over the traumatizing event and is back to cheering her team on.
After a while, Alice realized that many of her more memorable incidents happened on stairs, so she now knows that she has to check her steps, especially on stairs. Many of you will read this and find it entertaining while others will read it and know that all of these stories actually happened to me in real life. It is true that I have to think more than the average person while doing normal things like walking on stairs or walking in general, but my clumsiness makes me who I am and it has given me many great stories to tell.
*I have changed the names of those involved to keep their privacy.*
