Tears rolled down my cheeks as I screamed at the top of my lungs. Scared and in pain, my heart pounded faster as I lay there in disgust. Hanging from the metal bar, my bone poked out of my arm as sharp as a knive’s tip, stinging numb as I began to lose sight of what was happening. What can I say? Most people are smart enough not to play tag on a trampoline while it’s snowing but I would be the only one in this world to break my arm doing so.
As a child growing, I was always the one to fall in holes, trip over my own feet, and not so graciously face plant. It seemed natural. Falling at least twice a day came to be an everyday ritual. And when I turned nine, I knew it would haunt me forever.
Going to middle school, my luck worsened. Walking down hallways, I would spot a really cute boy and we would catch eye contact for a moment, when all of a sudden. Bam! The sound of the locker slamming shut at the acceleration of my face meeting it echoed throughout the school. The roar of his laugh just made my stomach twist as my face turned red.
I used to think that what I was going through was just clumsiness. It was just a phase and someday I would be clumsy free but I started to think it would get worse when I realized…
Others saw me differently.
My friends didn’t see me as someone who was clumsy nor did Miss Lucas, my English teacher. The way she brags to the class about my grace and beauty on the softball field gives my peers a different thought then what I really am. But maybe she’s right. I don’t remember ever doing something clumsy out there, well except maybe pitch a ball instead of a strike or get hit by a blazing inside fastball and start to cry like a little baby. I might be clumsy outside of the softball field, but when I’m in the middle of that mound, my thoughts run away and disappear. The way my arm gracefully releases the ball with all my force fills me with a sudden rush of exhilaration. I’m a completely different person on the field and no clumsiness can change that. This I Believe.