I’m not particularly graceful. understatement of the year maybe?
as a kid, I used to run into things all the time.. things like walls. doors. people. anything you could think of. I dropped things all the time, and it wasn’t until I was older did I master the kick save.. or the deft catch of the glass as it tumbles off the counter. who said that goalie dexterity would never come in handy off the field? I also fall. semi-often. for all these reasons, I got nicknamed Grace when I was younger. luckily, I’ve mostly outgrown it. (the nickname, not the clumsiness.) that is, until I do something ridiculous like I did yesterday. I feel like the story might just make your day, so enjoy. it’ll be illustrated too.
so yesterday morning we were released at first formation (at 8:30 a.m.) to go back to our barracks to do whatever needed to be done until the formation after lunch at 1:30. aka: sleep. we aren’t released like that often, so we all scrambled to our rooms to enjoy our naps. (we’re like kindergartners just waiting for snack time and nap time, I swear. talk about rearranging priorities..) I managed to sleep straight through from 8:45 to 12:56. here I am, thinking that my body’s brilliant (perfect candidate for cloning?) and it woke me up right when I needed to get up to make formation. it takes about five minutes to walk there (seven or eight if I’m shuffling.. which is an appropriate way to walk after a four hour nap.), and we have to be in formation 15 minutes prior to the actual formation time. so perfect timing, right? wrong.
I check my phone, and sitting on top is a text from our pg (platoon guide.. the student that’s in charge of our platoon) saying that I need to be at CQ (our company’s headquarters) at 1:00 to do something for our platoon sergeant. crap. crapcrapcrapcrap. so I’m pulling on clothes, stuffing things in my backpack, grabbing some cherries (I’d slept right through lunch), and running through the door. I get outside our barracks at 12:59 and I’ve still got about a quarter of a mile to go. there’s a shortcut behind our barracks.. a pebbled path with rocks on both sides.. so I take it like I do every day, but this time I’m at a dead sprint. there’s one low part in the path where water collects when it rains (yeah, it rains in the desert. say hello to monsoon season.), so in the interest of not getting my shoes soaking wet, I jump it.
hm. maybe not a good idea.
my take off and jump was great. my landing.. well.. I landed in the soft mud on the opposite side, and I’m sure you can imagine that I lost all traction. so down I go. hard. I scuffed my hand real bad, and nicked both of my legs, but the best part had to be the fact that as soon as I fell, I got back up and continued running.. evaluating my injuries as I went. I mean come on.. I put the mission first, and I was definitely running incredibly late. but listen.. I promise you that someone sitting in the parking lot observed the whole thing and had a much better day because of it.
so I got there about two minutes late, though it didn’t end up being that big of a deal. I did get crap from my sergeant for the rest of the day, but I took it quite gracefully. (get it? gracefully? eh, bad pun.) another lesson learned: stop running near rocks. ha, we’ll see if I remember that lesson next time I’m late.
oh, and I feel obligated to tell you that while it doesn’t look bad in the pictures, it hurts. ): my shower was not enjoyable last night.
{ this one hurts the worst. ): I pulled a huge chunk o' skin off, and now when I do pushups I wince. }
{ right knee. classic knee scrape. makes me all nostalgic.. }
{ please be incredibly jealous of my rockin' socks. yeah, that's right, I make calf socks look good. }