We all fall down...

I fell down and hit my head.

Now I bet you’re thinking: Age-Related. You’re not thinking klutzy-related or athletic enterprise or slapstick or ha,ha,ha or so-what-else-is-new. You’re thinking uh, oh, fragility, weakness, elderly.

Argh!

So when the little toddler on ice skates got confused and bumped around and came backwards at me, I knew I was in trouble. I’m not a hockey player; I can’t turn on a dime. First skate of the season, I’m a Tin Man on skates. So I went down backwards and my head slammed into the ice.

Going down on ice takes your breath away. Slamming your head takes that up many, many notches. I’m pretty sure I panicked inside, and when I realized my jaw didn’t seem to fit in my head any more, I was … distressed.

Suddenly, people were all around me: “Do you need an EMT? Do you want us to call 911? Do you want to go to the hospital?” Tim and Sophie walked me off the skating oval, and I sat on an upside-down bucket. Sophie was worried, “You didn’t cry in Florida.”

“When was I in Florida?” (Was I crying now?)

“Typhoon Lagoon.” Oh, that’s right, I’d cracked my head before going down a water slide while we were on the National Waterpark Tour. I don’t remember that hurting. I just remember the blood everywhere. When I got to the bottom, 10-year-old Sophie exclaimed, “Mommy, all your hair dye came out all at once.”

So Friday, Sophie insisted she had to take my hat off and see if my head was bleeding. It wasn’t. She was relieved. I said, “Y’know what’s really killing me? That everyone here at this whole big Winter Solstice event is probably saying, ‘Did you hear about the old lady that fell?’”

I was on a plane a year or so ago and got up to stand in line for the restroom. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor and the flight attendants were telling me to stay there. Then they announced for any health professional onboard to come to the rear of the plane. It was all very confusing since no one else was required to get on the floor, just me.

Since then, I have learned that if you get up too fast from an airplane seat, you can faint. I guess I took down the flight attendant’s coffee pot with me. But it was the look on their faces that said not anyone can faint; only old, frail, infirm, elderly people faint. And then it’s so tragic.

When you’re 20 years old and you faint – I have low blood pressure, I’ve fainted my whole life – you get up, laugh, and people make jokes. They tell you how funny it was.

Now they look at me with Concern. I’m on the downhill slide to bedridden.

Am I being too sensitive? Do you know what I’m describing? Do we look … pitiable … if we stumble and fall?

Now, I must admit, the thing that sticks with me most about the whole event was a very kind woman named Mary (whom I’d met over at the hot chocolate station earlier). Mary stood next to me and said, “Relax into your body and let it tell you what it needs” or something like that which was incredibly calming and true, and I did it. I’d guess Mary was in her Third Third, too.

Very quickly, the daughter-with-an-iPhone looked into my eyes to make sure my pupils were the same size. When we got home, she looked at me again. She was worried because there were dark circles under my eyes, and that’s A Sign. “Or are those dark circles always there? It’s not blood pooling, is it?”

This is why we have children.

Then she said, “I just don’t want you to be a Natasha Richardson story! She hit her head, came home, hung out with her family, and died later. Do you have a headache?”

“What do you mean ‘hung out’!?! Like she was fine and then she died?”

“Only because she had a headache later.”

“But if I take Tylenol, will that mask the killer headache I might have?!?”

“Don’t worry. We’re watching to see if you deteriorate.”

This is why we have children.

Okay, it’s days later. It still hurts to brush my hair over the spot, and my jaw can’t tackle a bagel, but I haven’t deteriorated.

Hooray, I have not deteriorated!