I am ALWAYS clumsy

I really wish I hadn't been born with the Clumsy Curse. It has followed me around my entire life, and it always seems to sneak up at the most inopportune moments. One such case happened recently... in front of my 7th grade students...

The kids were doing group mini-lesson presentations in my Student Mentors Training class. I was standing in the back of the room while the kids were giving the lesson in the front of the room. I had to separate two boys who were talking incessantly in the back, so I went and actually stood between them to make sure they couldn't talk. My desks are set up in rows right now, so this was in the very back row. Everything was going very smoothly... until...

The presentations were finished and a girl came up behind me to ask me a question. I turned around and stepped back all in one motion. Of course, any person who was born with the Clumsy Curse should automatically know to NEVER step backwards. But maybe that's exactly the reason we have the curse... because we never seem to learn from things like this. Because I'm in a class full of kids... who all have bookbags... which all must remain on the floor during class.

FLOP!!!!! That was the sound I made when I hit the floor after tripping backwards over bookbags... in front of the whole class of 7th graders!! Yup, that's right... the teacher fell... in class... while everyone was watching. I didn't just stumble or trip. I mean, I ATE it on the floor!

Praise be to the good Lord above for divinely inspiring me to not shave my legs that day so that I would wear pants and comfy flat shoes, or else this really could have been the worst experience of my life. Students seeing my legs fly up over my head is bad enough... thank goodness they didn't get to see my legs fly up over my head with a skirt on. Because I'm sure that would have been a side of me that NONE of us wants to see!

So I was totally okay. I didn't hurt myself, because people with the Clumsy Curse don't ever really get hurt enough that people would want to make sure you're alright... we always just fall enough to be laughed at hysterically. I thought I had already been the one to live through the horrific years of being laughed at in middle school. But no, I chose to come back for round 2 as an adult, which of course makes the Clumsy Curse even funnier to middle school students. So here I was again... ten years later after my first round of Middle School, once again sitting on the floor after having just fallen down, and having 7th graders all laughing at me.

I guess I lived through it once before, so I can do it again, right?? Maybe this is just the Lord's way of once again reminding me to have empathy for my little students who are constantly being mocked by their peers.