Let's Talk - Clumsiness & Embarrassment

Lets face it, we've all had clumsy moments occur throughout our whole lives (and if you haven't, you must be extremely lucky and I'm jealous of your gracefulness!😄). The idea for today's post came from something which happened to me a few days ago that got me thinking and so I thought I'd share some of those little thoughts here on my blog.

Back Story

My brother and I were going out to a local nature spot to take some photos and stopped at Costa on the way to grab an iced coffee. As we were leaving with our drinks, I couldn't find my car keys and realised that I must have accidentally left them in the car. We had been at Costa for around 15ish minutes and I immediately panicked that the car had locked itself with the keys inside (something which I had done once before in the past, but had luckily been at home when that happened). So, with my iced coffee in hand, I began to flat out sprint back to my car. I had parked in a Tesco car park that was up some steps from where the Costa was located. In my mad dash, I tripped going up the stairs spilling some coffee as well as breaking the cup it was in. There was an older lady walking just ahead of me when I fell, she gave me a brief look and continued on walking; a family walking on the other side of the road who had seen me run and fall gave a gasp and then also continued on their way😄. I didn't even stop to think about any of it, I just got straight back up, taking my now leaking drinking cup of what was left of my iced coffee and started back with running to get to my car. Very luckily my car hadn't locked itself and my keys were still safely inside. I was beyond relieved, but internally kicking myself over how thoughtless I had been as to leave the keys in the car in the first place. My brother caught up to me and made sure I was okay because he'd heard rather than seen me fall. It was he who convinced me to go back to Costa (ensuring my keys were firmly with me) to get a new drink as well as to see if their toilets were open so I could clean myself up a bit. The man working in Costa recognised us straight away when we went in for the second time and I explained briefly what had happened and he made up another drink for me, free of charge despite me trying to insist that I pay for a new drink since it was my own fault for what had happened, but he was very understanding about the whole situation.

If something like this were to have happened in the past, I feel that my reactions to the things that happened would have been different. For instance, if I was to have tripped and fallen this would have been something which I most likely would have been very embarrassed by and would have probably had to hold back tears over it all. I would have then spent the rest of the day constantly thinking over it all and feeling the embarrassment all over again. I hate drawing any sort of attention to myself, especially attention over something like tripping and falling over in public. However, when it happened this time, I didn't even think twice about it - I just got straight back up and didn't even dwell on it. This could have been because I was much more occupied/stressed about the possibility of being locked out my car along with the fact that when it happened my brother was there to make sure I was okay which definitely helped the whole situation. However, in that moment I also realised that it really didn't matter that I had tripped and spilt my drink; I've made peace with the fact that I can be quite a clumsy person and things like this have happened to me throughout my life that, now, I just don't care in the same way. Yes people saw me trip and fall (although none of them did anything/even ask if I was alright, which was actually completely fine by me if I'm honest😄) but perhaps similar things like that have happened to those people at some point in their lives too so they just know what it can be like when something like that happens. 

What I've learned

I feel that whenever things like this happen in life, it's always good to take something away from the experience. My main take-aways from this has been to always check that I've got my car keys before leaving the car - something I know I'll definitely be more mindful about in the future. And that "embarrassing" moments, such as falling over in public, can happen to anyone of any age and that it's really okay. On this occasion, I actually didn't feel embarrassment however I do know that had there been more people around, I probably would have and that's okay too. Embarrassing moments are a part of life and, if anything, they always make for funny stories to tell people afterwards. Sometimes I struggle to think of things to talk about with other people, but stories like these always prove helpful😄. Sharing potentially "embarrassing" stories with others is usually a surefire way to initiate a conversation of shared/similar experiences. This whole situation also reinforced that there are kind people in the world (like the man who worked in Costa) who have also probably had similar experiences in the past.

If (when) something like this happens again, I'm going to try and carry on in the same way I did for this situation - not dwelling on what happened and not letting feelings of embarrassment take over as I would have done in the past. I know that what happened really wasn't bad at all and that it could have been worse but there's no point in thinking of the "what ifs". I'm really lucky for how everything turned out and, like I said, it makes for a funny little story.

have you experienced any potential "embarrassing" moments recently?😄

Bye for now, xo