THE ISOLATION JOURNALS - DAY FOUR - LOVE IS ALL AROUND

Today’s prompt:

As a human being on Planet Earth I’ve experienced my fair share of awkwardness. (Maybe more than most). I have learned to love these moments for in discomfort, valuable epiphanies are often found. Also, in retrospect, they can generate great laughter. Ah, the Glorious Awkwardness!

Reflect on a particular moment in your past when you felt most in touch with your “Glorious Awkwardness.” It could be a cringe-worthy moment you’ve replayed a thousand times in your mind. Or something essential about who you are, something unchangeable. Go back there.

What did you learn from it? Can you laugh about it? And if not, why?

Love is All Around

I stood there on Market Street waiting for the light to change. I’d just gotten my hair cut, and I was feeling unusually sassy. Mary Tyler Moore in the opening credits throwing her hat up in the air sassy.

When the walk sign flashed, I crossed the street, sassily leaping over the treacherous trolley tracks. I could practically hear the 70’s theme song playing in the background:

Who can turn the world on with her smile?

Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?

Well it's you girl, and you should know it

With each glance and every little movement you show it

As I reached the opposite side of the street, I joyfully jumped to the curb just like Mary would have done.

Crack.

It registered in my brain milliseconds before it registered in my body. I was about to go down. And it wasn’t gonna be pretty.

Crash.

I lay there on Market Street waiting for the pain to hit. I had just fallen on my ass, and I was feeling my usual stupid self. Rhoda Morgenstern in the opening credits throwing her hat up in the air and having it plummet to the ground like a lifeless squirrel stupid.

“Are you OK?” someone asked.

I looked up and saw Greg Wise. And I don’t mean Greg Wise, the super-handsome fiftyish actor who played the dashing royal Lord Mountbatten in The Queen and also won the celebrity version of The Great British Bakeoff. No, I mean Greg Wise, the super-hot thirtyish actor who played the dashing cad John Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility and also ended up marrying Emma Thompson in real life. (Suck it, Kate Winslet!)

Greg Wise…or the San Francisco hipster version of him…extended his hand to me just as John Willoughby extended his hand to the injured Marianne Dashwood in the movie. I reached up gratefully, and Greg Wise’s eyes twinkled as he said, “This hurts your ego more than it hurts anything else, am I right?”

Wait, what?

I quickly withdrew my hand and experienced one of those flashback sequences straight out of Minority Report. Looking super-cute in my 1980s parachute pants and holding a tray of bland college cafeteria food before going down splat on my ass. Looking va-va-voom Marilyn Monroe in my vintage red-satin dress and descending the steps of the Hasty Pudding Club before going down splat on my ass. Looking like Mary Poppins crossed with the Virgin Mary as I cradled my first-born savior in the Baby Bjorn before going down splat on my ass.

In the moments of impact, I always felt awkward. Self-conscious. A klutzy, graceless loser. And in the years that followed, I relived those moments over and over in my brain. The blooper reel from hell.

But as I grew into maturity, I quieted those voices. Convinced myself that no one really cared. That most people didn’t notice. That most people were so self-involved that they didn’t even register my humiliation.

Then along comes frickin’ Greg Wise and his twinkling eyes.

“Are you OK?” Greg repeated, his hand still extended.

I looked down at my ankle, which was already beginning to swell. It would be dark blue and purple tomorrow if I didn’t ice it soon. I drew myself straight and mustered up the courage to look into Greg’s eyes, which weren’t so twinkly after all. And I was surprised by what I saw reflected in them.

Damn, my hair looked really good.