Tags
Accountants, ax refund, Batman, Clumsy, Depression, Dream Catch Me, George Clooney, Klutz, Newton Faulkner, Tax return
A little secret
Okay, here’s something I haven’t really shared on my blog til now (tho it’s no secret to friends and family)… I’m a major league klutz.
Like, if there was a celebrity-style A list and B list etc for klutz’s then I’d be like… George Clooney A list material.
Yep. I am that serious a klutz.
Too many broken bones, sprained joints, and other soft tissue damage to count – well I did try once actually, and it wasn’t pretty. So let’s not go there.
Today, things started off with a bang. Or was that a crash? Or… it was a loud noise anyway. Came directly after I missed the second step as my workmate and I were leaving a client meeting. Certain there was only one step (there were two in reality), I was looking backwards and talking to the client while stepping forwards and…
I know I’m falling, and in the microseconds that exist between mid air and finding a landing that’s not too damaging (thank goodness for yoga, martial arts training, learning to ride/fall off horses when I was young, etc), I remind myself to relax.
Left foot makes contact with the floor, head is in danger of some nastiness, til I pull back a little and right knee followed by left knee and then right hand take most of the impact on the concrete floor. On the flip side, I saved myself from being impaled on shop fittings, which is always a bonus.
I swore my workmate to secrecy and kept quiet about my embarrassment. But then the aches kicked in. Damage isn’t too bad though… one skinned and two sore knees, achey right wrist and I can feel some of the muscles through the core of my body (the ones that saved my head from the floor).
But I am feeling a tad sorry for myself right about now… a grown woman and I still can’t be graceful. Hrmph!!!
Tax and bike trash opera
To add to my strange day, I finally got my act together see my new accountant (referral from my good friend L, I love that girl!). Wonderful man.
Til now, hadn’t done my taxes for the past three years (happens I reckon when you’re going through depression and stuff) and was expecting a modest refund back.
Ahem. Will be getting a little more than a modest refund! Though, most of it I won’t even see. Gotta pay back my folks and pay off a credit card bill (hooray!). But, there’ll be some cash left over to spend on stuff I desperately need/want.
Like fixing my bike.
It needed a service anyways… but then as I’m riding home from the accountant (way across town), I was cranking it up a hill when I felt my bike seat move a little. Then… crack! It fell right off! Couldn’t work out how to bolt it all back together on the side of the road…
So I rode back to my office without a seat (not so comfy), locked it up (there’s a bike shop near work) and feeling exhausted and a little sore, flagged down a cab (couldn’t be stuffed taking the bus).
That’s when it happened again. The song that’s been haunting my life came on the radio of the cab.
Ever been haunted by a song?
Now, I know this is gonna sound hokey, but…
I don’t even particularly like this song (a little too boppy and positive or something).
Don’t own the music, never bought the album. It’s called ‘Dream Catch Me‘ by Newton Faulkner (had to Google that).
The lyrics are all a bit self-empowerment based, too… not that I’m saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing, mind.
I tell ya, this song freakin’ follows me around!
Sorta started whenever it was I decided to quit my job last year. Every time I’ve made a significant decision, this song has literally played on the same day. Never by me. It’s just been around…
Like – when I quit my job, packing up my house/moving, travelling to the airport on the way to Thailand, just before and after getting my current job, finding my new home… others I can’t recall (thanks crappy memory) and then today, getting in the cab. After finally seeing the accountant.
Now, I know I could be hearing the song other times, but then especially noticing it at certain moments, but it’s kinda weird that it haunts all the ‘good’ moments in my life in recent times…
Don’t ask me how the embarrassing fall and bike seat breaking fits in to ‘good’ moments. But lemme just say the visit to the accountant was very good. Like, superpowers good.
As in, I haven’t been fantastic about taking care of myself, my health, my affairs… none of those things in the past few years. I simply didn’t care, or didn’t have the energy to do anything about it if I did care.
But this year, things are starting to shift.
Like – I’m not sleeping in all hours of the night and day any more. I can actually get up when my alarm goes off. For the longest time, I didn’t even hear it go off.
And – there’s the year and a half where I ran away down to the beach to live. Or rather, to hide. Didn’t have many people over to visit. And I didn’t go out much at all. Especially on weekends where I’d literally only leave the house to buy groceries.
So, taking charge of doing my taxes, along with my yoga course, improved ability to get out of bed, and getting the therapy help I need… all add up to me kicking depression’s ass!!
Just a little bit more, y’know?
~Svasti
Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness 
Yay! This post made me smile. Even the klutz part. (I’m one too) I’m happy for you “windfall”. Glad you will be able to catch up a little. I’m really happy you are in a better place. Keep going.
Hmmm…apparently “embedding has been disabled” for that video…though, if you don’t even like it yerself but are nonetheless tormented by it, that’s probably a good thing. A friend and I used to go backpacking together and would play this sadistic game where we’d stick the worst songs we could think of into each other’s heads…considering that they were generally cheesy pop songs that we’d each heard hundreds of times in supermarkets or wherever, and, being way out in the woods, we had no other music to listen to and wash them away with, the game was extremely potent….This one, though, sounds like it represents something for you, so might be worth looking into a bit more deeply…..
Dear Svasti,
This is yet another thing we have in common! I am also a klutz! Maybe even the world’s biggest–which I realized when I was working as a waitress in one of the high-falutin restaurants in San Francisco many years ago. I was carrying a huge tray (over my head–which I always thought was a pretty stupid way to carry anything)
of fine Italian food and all of a sudden–the tray just slipped and the entire tray, hodling about 4 dinners, flew across the table, landing on a man whose suit probably cost more than a year’s worth of rent at my apartment.
So, what do I do? Laugh. Hysterically! It’s like some weird form of Tourette’s but when I am really nervous, I laugh uncontrollably, which is what I did then–I just busted out and let loose. Needless to say, this really irritated the man and then the owner of the restaurant came out and yelled at me and fired mein front of the entire restaurant.
After that, I never attempted to waitress in a decent place again.
I hope your bruises, scrapes, and scruffs are healing nicely–and know that you are in great company when it comes to the klutz awards!
Melinda
It sounds to me like you are really blossoming, to find humor in your bumps & bruises and just freaking being alive. To be so full of life, you can handle anything that comes your way. I admit you made me laugh and this is just brimming with positivity! Now I wanna go ride my bike for a while (I hope I don’t fall LOL!)
Oh…in between when I wrote that earlier comment and now, I rode my bike into a concrete fencepost…no, didn’t skid on ice or anything, wasn’t heroically avoiding running over a puppy or small child, just was being very, very un-mindful and not paying attention to where I was going on a bike path. So, I picked myself up, feeling rather dazed, and rode the rest of the way downtown, to a yoga class–which, of course, was the perfect place to assess whether I was simply a little bit scratched up or actually injured…turns out nothing more serious than a bit of skin lost of my finger and a very superficial bruise on the side of my right knee…so, if you’re a klutz, at least you’re far from alone…
Well, I must tell you…
I’ve had that very same song stuck in my head several times.
My daughter won the album (and some others) at a local dress up event for a club last year.
I quite like the album & the song… At least it’s not Endless Love (BLERCHHH!!!) or Womanizer stuck your head!
But you know, I’m a bit of a doofus at times, too. I’m especially bad parking if Gary’s in the car. Normally, I’m great at parking.
Or I just do damn stupid, clumsy stuff … like driving through a gate and locking myself in -with the car on the other side … although I’m not the only person who’s every done that!
@tricia – In a better place, yes. Despite the latest turn of events. Seems the ripples of karma or whatever aren’t finished with me yet! More in a new post, later tonight or tomorrow morning. 😉
@Jay – That game does sound evil! Don’t know if the song means something for me or not, but it sure does play on the radio a heck of a lot around pivotal moments in my life!!
Re: your second comment, oh my… between you, Melinda and Amanda, I really don’t feel so alone in my World of Klutz. Glad you’re not hurt tho… 😀
@Melinda – Wonderful story, fantastic! I did some waitressing in my ‘youth’ and whilst I never had an incident of that nature, suffice to say its not something I was particularly good at either.
The nervous laughter sounds hysterical. I’m sure there were other patrons around who were laughing with you. I certainly would’ve been. Tee hee!!
@Bobby – Yep, all pretty amusing. Even today’s rather unexpected turn of events (as above, more in a post coming soonish). Hehe, hope you go riding. My bike is now safely at the cycle shop getting repaired!!
@Amanda – Its not so much that the song is stuck in my head… its more that it just freakin’ comes on the radio – whether I’m in a car, a shopping center, somewhere I’m getting food, on the TV or so on. Really. Weird. All in all, is not a bad song, just not my idea of a great song. And yeah, at least I’m not being haunted by other songs that are much more torturous…
Oooh, don’t you just hate that feeling when you miss a step? You know what’s coming and it isn’t going to be pretty. I’m not necessarily clumsy, but maybe more so when walking Lucy. There are a lot of exposed tree roots and I sometimes do one of those ballet leaps, albeit horizontally.
Wow, a refund is great and since some will go to your bike, extra great! Losing a seat mid-ride sounds like no fun at all…hope the injury from that wasn’t too bad!
I’ve never been haunted by a song, only by street lights going out when I pass…does that count? Don’t ask… :o)
@earthtoholly – Yep, I sure do hate that feeling! But I find the very short moments before impact mos interesting – perfect example of how time isn’t necessarily constant, as things slow down and there’s an opportunity to think clearly about what’s gonna happen.
Bike is now in the bike shop, due to be picked up Monday or Tuesday.
You put street lights out? What super-power is this?? You’ll have to enlighten me 😉
What is this – – The KLUTZ CLUB? Well count me in!
A certain meditation teacher used to treat my clumsiness like a moral failing (well now, we know where he can stuff HIS moral failings, don’t we!)
When we have repeated injuries though, we DO begin to wonder if SOMETHING is going on…the universe is trying to give us a message or whatever.
When I wrote my original 25 Random things (it’s on FaceBook, haven’t posted that one to my blog yet) I included my weird leg karma: bitten by a shark when I was 10 in one thigh…and when I was 8 the babysitter tried to lift me on top of the fridge and I slipped with the result that the fridge handle punctured my other thigh. Both “accidents” came within a fraction of an inch of paralyzing the respective leg!
And when it comes to yoga…well the injuries have never stopped. Though I cringe at the thought of how much MORE Klutzy I’d be without the training in mindfulness and agility.
About the song….you don’t watch Battlestar Galactica, do you? There are aliens that look human and it’s a song (Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower = at least it is a song I don’t mind getting stuck inside)….that turns them on to their life’s purpose. Sure you’re not an alien, Svasti? lol.
@laughingyogini – Great to know I’ve got some good company for my Club of Klutz. Wonderful news, really 🙂
Anyone who treats any particular behaviour you exhibit as a moral failing… well, it wouldn’t be polite to say what I think about that!
I’ve been tagged with that 25 things thing, too. Dunno if I’ll play along right now.
Those are very nice random things tho, wow, bitten by a shark!
A friend of mine has ‘phone karma’ and apparently, so does her mum. As in, never hears the phone ring, finds it difficult to return calls and often runs out of battery. Not for want of trying either.
Hmm, injuries from yoga? Not sure that’s the idea, y’know!
I don’t think I’m an alien, tho you never know. I could be one of those body snatcher ones and just not know it? That would make sense of a lot of the things that don’t make sense in my life…
Heehee I’m a major league klutz too. Totally. If only it counted as a super-power ‘eh? 😉
@CK – I reckon in some parallel universe, it is indeed a super power!! 😉
Your blog is doing me quite some good Svasti. I think that for me it is the guilt of depression that spirals me further downward.
So I’m depressed and therefore don’t get me work and my taxes done – that makes me more depressed and so on…
Yes I am haunted by songs and music. I often hear songs (like really hear) coming out of air-vents and central heating outlets. And yes, they come at certain times.
xhenry
@soulMerlin – why thank you Henry!! Its true, its easy to get into a depressive cycle but I think the key is to not beat yourself up too much about it. If you’re depressed, then you’re depressed. There’s no way to get around it at that point. Making yourself feel worse about being depressed isn’t helpful.
So give yourself a break!! 🙂