falling hard (in the literal sense, no metaphors here)

I fell off my bike the other day. As in, I was riding along just fine, tried to scoot up what I thought was a ramp up to the sidewalk but was actually a well-masked-by-weeds curb and totally bit it. My left knee took the brunt of the fall, sliding up the sidewalk as I went down, but the side of my right knee saw some action too, banging down pretty hard at the end of the fall.

What was my very first thought upon registering that I was falling off my bike on a public street as a 40-year-old woman? "Is anyone seeing this?" Of course. Before I had any regard for my physical condition-- spoiler alert, it was bloody!-- I was worried about being embarrassed in front of a stranger.

It's bad enough that I already feel like a fool when I'm on my bike. Fat old lady riding an old lady bicycle complete with actual basket on front, usually looking kind of wobbly up on the wide seat, and likely always in first or second gear, regardless of the terrain... not an image that builds confidence.

Keeping with the feeling good about yourself theme, I walked around with a big ass bandaid on my knee for several days, as the cuts were a little deep and if I didn't keep them gooey with antibiotic ointment, my whole knee was hard to bend without feeling like the cuts were going to rip back open. Delightful image, my apologies.

I'm past the bandaid stage now, but the healing cuts are still a bit itchy, and it looks to me like I'll be sporting some lined scars when this is all said and done. The funny thing to me is that on this same knee, just slightly to the right of this new development, I have similar lined scars from a different fall off my bike. That fall happened about thirty years ago, and though I don't remember all the specifics, I do remember that it was a patch of gravelly sand that did me in as I rode around the curve of a cul-de-sac after exiting a path over a favorite childhood spot of mine.

A little creek ran under a pedestrian bridge that connected two parts of our neighborhood. It was a regular path for me and my bicycle when I was in the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades, as my best friend lived on the other side. That infamous day, I can't remember if I was riding to her house or back to my own, or even if she was with me at the time or if I was alone, but I do remember that I took a pretty hard fall after my bike slipped in that damn gravelly sand and that my knee was bleeding pretty badly. Someone's mom came out to help me, I think, but I honestly can't even remember how I got home.

I've had these faint little black lines under the skin of my knee for all years since that fall. They've been a part of me, just as a scar on my other knee has been there since I was even younger, maybe kindergarten age. I've pointed them out to many a child in the moments of caring for their newly-skinned knees, as a reassurance that it's okay, we all fall down when we're kids. Don't worry. It will heal, and you will be just fine.

Until you're 40 years old and you fall off your bicycle again. Then you'll add a new scar to the mix, another story to recall decades from now as you examine the skin that you just can't quite believe is really your own, spotted and wrinkly, bearing more marks than you can assign stories to.

Or maybe it's just me.

Hello, sidewalk. We've got to stop meeting like this.