I am a klutz. I trip constantly, I’m always walking into tables or falling off the couch, I spill food on or around myself at least once per meal (including snacks), I have more burn scars on my hands from forgetting a potholder or an oven mitt and my coworkers have long since stopped asking “what happened?!” when they see another gargantuan bruise on me, having figured out that the only thing beating me up is gravity. I don’t know where I get it from because neither my parents nor brother are even close to my level of clumsy hot mess (my twinster T gets close, but I’ve got the edge), but either way, I have the clumsy gene and there’s nothing I can do about it.

This weekend I managed to injure my lone remaining good foot while racing to the pool area from my parent’s deck in the beautiful Saturday sun, in desperate need of the Bose stereo so mama B, my brother’s wonderful girlfriend D, my lovely friend M and my work buddy S and I could continue a dance party to the best of the 60s. Still grooving with the stereo as I ran from the fire pit past a row of lawn chairs, I sped up to turn a corner and smacked my foot directly into the metal leg of a rogue lounge chair and exhaled the loudest “MOTHER F&!)#*@!&R” I’ve ever uttered in my entire life. Exactly a week after twisting my left ankle so badly it still hurts to walk down stairs, I was now hobbling around with a likely-broken toe on my right foot. The crowd from inside came out to see what I’d gotten myself into, probably expecting a snapping turtle attack, and instead we all just shook our heads and laughed: of course LB ran into the lounge chair. Of course.

In most aspects of my life, I’m fairly well organized and put-together. My desk at work would beg to differ, but my inbox is semi-organized, I would never wear black shoes with a brown belt, and I’ve gotten into a great routine at home to stop magazines from piling in the corner and keep empty wine bottles from an extended stay in my recycling bin. I even organized my closet a few months back, summer dresses next to jumpsuits next to blazers next to skirts (aside: yes I have a jumpsuit section and it’s the best part of my closet. End aside), and it’s stayed organized for much longer than I’d ever anticipated. All in all, I’m a fairly organized and put-together person. In fact, I’m really only clumsy with myself.

“Clumsy with myself” is another way to describe the reckless abandon I’ve been integrating into my life these days, throwing my heart around like a rubber ball and waiting to see if it breaks or bounces back. It’s been such a weird year so far, 2014, and as we’re officially in the second half of the year, I’ve been thinking a lot about what might happen, or what I want to happen, before it’s 2015. Some of it’s silly, like getting a new couch and finally getting rid of my horrid Ikea dresser in lieu of a bookshelf; other goals are bigger, work goals, financial goals. And despite knowing and setting and wanting these goals, I’m letting my reckless, clumsy heart direct how I feel about progress to-date, measuring self-worth in days, weeks, months dealing with everything on my own, all the time. It’s clumsy and careless and full abandon and there are some days where I just want to SCREAM at myself to get over the short-lived happy love and get back to reality, paying attention to the pragmatic and ignoring all the little wisps of spontaneity trying to pull me back to the klutzy, clumsy self I am.

In desperate need of heels this morning, I tried gingerly slipping my feet into my favorite “short” (read: 4 inches) stilettos, hoping that I could break my longest-ever streak of 6 days without heels in the office. Not only was there a good amount of pain when I stood up in my “comfortable” shoes, but in trying to sit down as quickly as possible, I kicked out the wheels on my chair and fell ass-first on the floor. I sat laughing like an idiot, as my coworkers shook their heads and laughed with me, Clumsy LB, at it again. It’s not the most glamorous description, and sometimes it’s painful, but being clumsy with gravity and with myself may just be another ridiculous aspect of my life I need to get used to. Perhaps it’s time to re-embrace the reckless abandon: on from the small infinity of a fast love lost and into the new unknown, counting the bruises, spilled food and broken toes as milestones along the way.