The Twenties

Kids will be kids. They get hurt, they fall down, they're resilient. AND they have guardians watching to make sure they don't get hurt TOO badly. It's when you leave home that the real fun begins.

Before I left home, I broke a toe and cracked my nose, both were straight and neither received medical attention. I also bruised some ribs and my tailbone once or twice. 

In the last 7 years, I've done permanent damage. I have popped the cartilage in my hand, fallen down 2 flights of stairs, developed carpal tunnel in both hands, had tendonitis 3-4 times, damaged ligaments, injured nerves, and lost a lot of skin with lasting, permanent scars. I live my life in pain, and I know that I am lucky to still be a functioning human being with use of all my parts.

Every part of my body cracks: my nose, my jaw, my neck, my back, my knees, my fingers and toes, my feet and ankles, my wrists and elbows. There's a lot of discussion about whether or not cracking your joints is bad for you, and here's what I've learned: it's perfectly normal for air to leave your joints and for you to gently crack them, but if you push too hard on your joints, you can stretch your ligaments out and rub cartilage together and that damage lasts forever, so don't get overzealous in the cracking.

Keep Your Hands To Themselves

It's best to start training yourself early on to keep your hands to themselves, by which I quite literally mean, no scratching, no biting, no itching. Scars are permanent, sensitive, itchy, and not very attractive.

My list of more prominent scars:

-Ring Finger Left Hand: deep diagonal scar where I almost cut my finger off with a butcher's knife.
-Middle Finger Left Hand: thin diagonal scar where I almost cut my finger off with a jeweler's saw.
-Hairline: 3 diagonal pits from a collision with the corner of a science lab table
-Nose: Vertical scar straight down the middle from falling on a paved hill at recess in first grade
-Spine: Several scarred vertebrae from an incident with a construction table.
-Left Lumbar: Diagonal scar from an incident with a screw in same construction table
-Left Eyebrow: 1" scar when I fainted into a marble floor a month before my wedding

I have countless other scars from scratches, burns, and random clumsiness, as well as stretch marks from a rapid growth spurt when i was 10. In general, my older scars healed better than my newer scars since skin cell turnover is so high in your youth. When you get cut, the blood coagulates in the wound and the cells rebuild. When your scratch out the scab, you disrupt the healing process and the edges of the wound, keeping it from fully healing. Band-aids are good. They keep you away from the wound.

Lesson: KEEP YOUR HANDS TO THEMSELVES.

From One Klutz to Another

In 25 years of being a clumsy person, I feel it's my duty to prepare the next generation for their long-term relationship with Murphy's Law. There are things you can only learn the hard way and trust me, I learned them the hard way. So consider this your survival guide to being "born this way", and just go with it.

1. Murphy's Law is selective; it's like winning the lottery. you have been branded. No matter what anyone says, IT'S YOU. It's not the furniture, it's not bad luck, it's not the people around you, it's just you. The door frame did not move, the table was always there, and it is not your shoes. You were born this way. Now let's move on.

2. Band-Aids are a necessity of life for you. You should always have at least one (preferrably two). Your purse, your pocket, your car, inside your iphone cover, be prepared. Hint: The fabric band-aids are the best ones, they stay on even when wet, and they breathe. Forget about the cutesy patterns on the others, fabric is the way to go. P.S. Liquid band-aid stings like a mother fucker, just thought you should know.

3. Your wounds can predict the weather. Congratulations on your newfound astrological talents. Now move somewhere warm where it never rains.

4. There are some bruises that look undeniably like someone beat you. Trust me, they never believe "I walked into a door" -no, not even if they've seen you walk into dozens of doors, tables, and other inanimate objects before. Stick with "I'm so clumsy I'm practically disabled". Telling them about how you fell into the shelving in the canned soup aisle at Giant isn't going to help.

5. If you've gone more than a month without hurting yourself, you're overdue.

6. Physical therapy hurts. It's supposed to hurt. Suck it up and go anyway.

7. Being double insured sounds like a good idea in theory. It's not. Just trust me on this one.

8. Drink your milk. Having strong bones is the difference between a bruised bone and a broken bone. Really, keep your body healthy in general will keep you intact longer. One of the biggest things they do in physical therapy is strengthen the rest of your body to make up for the damaged part. Keep it strong to begin with and you won't have to work so hard.

9. Support braces are not fun. They itch, they're uncomfortable, and in general they're designed to restrict movement. Wear them anyway. However, having had my share of support accessories, I highly recommend comfort cool and kinesio tape. The first is currently the most comfortable brace I've had to date and the second is basically fabric tape (kind of like a bandaid) that stimulates circulation and supports muscles and ligaments. It helps. I buy it on amazon.

10. Your clumsiness affects other people. While you may be the primary target, the people around you are often casualties.