In life, you are going to fall

So that girl in the green shorts... that is me. Not literally me, but honestly they couldn't have made a better replica of what is awkward me. 

And don't you worry, my friend Kayla took no time pointing it out. Not that I don't deserve it haha 

Here I was reading a group text message: "This reminds me of Shelby." How sweet I thought, she is going to show a picture of a little blonde haired girl with a cute outfit on. 

Then I open the link to this. Cool.

Wondering what exactly I did to deserve this? Well let me tell you, I deserve it alright.  You have heard of my moment of kneeling... and you are about to hear my moment of busting my face.

Lets go back a few years, 8th grade if I remember correctly. It is new years eve and our parents had bussed 20 boys and girls out to Kaylyn's lake house. I had my sisters Bebe shirt on and was feeling great. Of course, as most of my younger days (and older days really) were spent, I was single and surrounded by a million couples. You can say this is an exaggeration, until you are sitting at the head of your senior prom dinner table with 12 other people. That's right, let me introduce you to the 13th wheel. Nice to meet you too.

I was also surrounded by grass. And this grass was shaped like huge stair steps. Every couple of feet there was a dip down in the ground to the next patch of grass. Clearly this set up looked like a gold mine to the boys as they were taking turns running and jumping off. Yeah thats right, we thought it was cool.

And it only made sense that the girls were trying to do the same. Because everything guys do is something girls need to do too. But, like girls, it had to be made into a big deal. So as each girl took their turn running right to the edge then screeching to a halt and screaming I started to see that this was just silly. 

"Guys, come one it really isn't that hard!" 

Watch me eat my own words. And some dirt.

I took off running (full speed) and bam! No no, not bam did I jump, bam did I hit the ground rolling. Too bad I didn't see the huge pot hole in the grass. Good thing my foot caught it. And good thing my sisters nice Bebe shirt looked good with grass stains. 

Okay, so none of those were good. But here I am laying on the ground like an idiot, in front of my biggest crush of all time (in 8th grade every crush is the biggest crush of all time), because I thought I needed to show these girls how to stop acting like girls. At the time nothing ran through my head but embarrassment. I would never recover. Obviously I would have a limp for the rest of my life. No boy would ever want to date the girl who fell on new years eve. I would never get married, and obviously no place of work would want someone so stupid. 

Little did I know then that everyone falls on new years eve. Everyone fell a lot in life.

You need to fall to remember there is ground below you. What matters is how you get up. And, after brushing off a small amount of the dirt I stood up like a champion. Okay, really I wobbled to my feet and walked away. But that is fine. I survived. 

Which is something we forget when we fall in life. We will survive. And those moments that seem unbearable, they pass. Just the memory lives on. But those memories bring you the best things.

Look at Whitney Port. She had the opportunity to model for a morning show and what did she do... fall right over at the end of the stairs. What did it do for her though? She was noticed by the designer, introduced to Kelly Cutrone, got a job, made a connection, made a clothing line, got it placed in stores. Now, this wasn't all because she fell. But no one knows where the two other models who didn't fall are. 

So that is my point. Falling is embarrassing, and falling hurts. My butt was sore for days. My butt healed though. And so did my ego. And years later people still remember. It is always better to be remembered for something silly than to not be remembered at all.