Grace

“We should’ve named you Grace.”

My father coined this one-liner early in my childhood. I was gangly youngster, perpetually covered in paper cuts, mystery bruises, and mosquito bites. When I first met my grandmother—at two years of age—I greeted her with a face scabbed over from a fall. As soon as I could walk, I was clumsy. And man, did my dad love the subtle hilarity of sarcasm.

I remember being and kid and thinking, “Yeah, I’ll probably grow out of this.” I watched my friends dance and twirl, demonstrating lessons from their ballet classes, while I swayed awkwardly in place to the beat of our bubblegum pop music. I had grow out of the clumsiness, right? After all, my muscles and bones were still growing, and my reflexes kept having to adjust to growth spurt after growth spurt. Surely once that all settled I would gain some grace?

Wrong.

My youth is scattered with memories of falls—trips, slips, jumps, and stumbles—that left me with embarrassment and sore palms. These moments sifted seamlessly into my teenage years. If anyone’s drink were to explode or backpack to rip, it was going to be mine.

In high school, I walked backwards off stage during a dress rehearsal of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I landed half on stage, half off, uncomfortably split between the roles of melancholic Helena and awkward Jordan. Luckily for my friend Ashley, she got to witness my drop from above as she stood in a crane, adjusting the angles of the spotlights that were mounted to the ceiling of our high school cafetorium.

As an adult, I find myself tripping up the stairs or shouldering doorways much more regularly that I would ever like to admit. Just last week, I bruised my toe while putting my pants on; one tug and jump into my jeans, and I kicked my foot into the wall, toe-first. All of these things are done stone-cold sober, which is unfortunate, really; it would be nice to have something to dull my pain and dismay. Of course, nothing is quite as magical as when klutziness and public humiliation meet. (What a marriage!)

At twenty-one years of age, I was enjoying my last winter holiday before my final semester of college. The month off from classes from mid-December through early January was the last great reprieve I would have for a long while; I was months away from graduation and facing the so-called “real world” with my bachelor’s degree in tow. I had about a week left before I had to make the 400-mile trek back to Downeast Maine, and decided to attend my cousin’s basketball game with my parents.

Jamie was a freshman in high school in the next town over from my hometown. That day, she was pulled off the junior varsity basketball team and sat the bench at the varsity game, ready to make her varsity debut. It was a big deal! We were all excited for Jamie to shine.

My parents and I sat near the very top of the bleachers. My aunt and uncle were already at the game, surrounded by friends and parents of the other players. We chatted through the game, watching the clock and waiting for Jamie to be put into the game. I bragged about the new moccasins I was wearing—a $20 Marshall’s find—and twisted my feet under the stark gym lights to show them off.

The game was nearing the end of the final quarter. Jamie had sat on the bench the entire game thus far. My Uncle Bob was ready to give the couch a piece of his mind, while my Aunt Suzanne held him back with a steady stream of No, Bobby’s.

Then—thirty seconds on the clock. Jamie was let into the game. We cheered. She shuffled around the court, waiting for someone to pass the ball to her. The buzzer sounded. Game over.

“That was disappointing.”

“I feel bad for Jamie.”

“Why even call her up to varsity if he’s not going to play her?”

The conversations immediately beside be began to be drowned out by the murmurs of the crowd. Families were disbursing toward the floor, greeting their loved ones and waving to neighbors. We waited for the stairs to clear before heading down to follow them.

I stood up, took a step away from my seat, and began to walk down the bleachers. One missed step, and I lost my balance. The next few seconds became a blur of fluorescent lighting and lacquered wood until… thump. I hit the gym floor ankle-first.

“Owww,” I exclaimed comically.

A crowd quickly gathered around me while my own parents reached the floor, oblivious to my fall. The medic—on call for the basketball game—ran towards me with an ice pack.

“It may be sprained,” he said.

Eyes stared at me from all around. Every stranger that checked in on me just added to my embarrassment. Stupid moccasins, I thought. Then Jamie eased through the crowd, fresh out of the locker room.

“I’m sorry about the game,” I said, pressing the ice against my ankle. The suede of my shoes began to darken with the condensation.

“It’s whatever,” Jamie said. Her freckled face was flushed.

“And I’m sorry about falling down the bleachers in front of the entire crowd,” I added. “I hope nobody knows that I’m your cousin.”

A week later, I drove up to school left-footed, tucking my swollen ankle back as comfortably as I could for a seven-and-a-half-hour drive. Once on campus, my roommate laughed as I ambled into our dorm room and then struggled to hop onto my elevated twin XL bed. I spent the first week of the semester sleeping on the floor of my dorm, elevating my foot on my beanbag chair. As I fell asleep, next to my own bed instead of on it, I couldn’t help but chuckle thinking about the embarrassing way I ended up there.