Alas, Poor Laura

So.

Sunday I hurt myself again.

It was horrible, such a pity it was self-inflicted. I could have put someone in jail, or paid off all my student loans, or maybe bought a car which starts when I want it to and not the other way around. Before you assume I am a cutter, or that I should be institutionalized, let me explain. It wasn't my fault. Who makes stairs to look like a gentle upward slope? Who? Because that's the person who owes me big-time.

All I wanted to do was warn Jaren that the play was about to begin. I should have been able to walk upstairs, shouldn't I? But instead I tripped, stood on my right foot rather than the floor, and thinking I had regained balance, attempted to step forward with the trapped right foot. I was the opening act, the whole theater saw me. But I retained some dignity.

I didn't fall flat on my face.

I just tumbled, catching myself in a sort of chicken-dance posture in my own tragic ballet.

What makes me think of this is the slight throbbing which radiates from my wounded foot. I have a heel-shaped purple bruise there now. Forensic scientists would just love me. I bet they could find the shoe that did it. Curse my beautiful Target ballet flats! Never again will I buy a shoe without a soft rubber sole. The clip-clop of a woman's shoe on a tile floor is overrated anyway. I don't need to sound business-like. I can be a clod; I promise. I've done it before! I will leave off brushing my hair, buy Hanes sweat pants, and wear oversized t-shirts embellished with Tweety-bird's giant face. I will chew gum with my mouth open, and keep my Wal-mart tennis shoes until the white turns gray-brown and all the rubber peels away and falls off. I can do it! Why should I dress nicely if it only leads to pain? I can't count the number of times my mascara has made my contacts scratch my eyes and abandon ship. I will stop using both. Maybe then I can protect myself!

But then I remember the true cause. The incidents in which I find myself skating down a hallway in my high school, balanced on my elbow as I travel in the wake of all my books, holding a camera aloft above me in my right hand to protect it at any cost. The moments of blind terror, in which I realize that Mom wasn't holding the door open for me, as it turns and turns, and I remain the only obstacle in its path, trapped, while the stylish girl who wants inside forces her body weight against the not-quite-revovling door to start up the motion again. My fault. The students in my FYC class stepping over my prone form, sprawled on the ice below them, on their way to the computer lab. Ouch. All the bruises on my collarbone from misjudgements in door-frame locations, on my hand from unseen chairs, doorknobs, and tables. Again, my fault.

And I really don't think this is a phase anymore.

Tell me world, is there an escape? Can I buy a bubble to live in? Do they sell those on E-bay?