All the silly things I do and the silly things I have done keep coming.  I don’t have to try to be funny; it comes naturally.  I have to wait, and the accidents and incidents find me. My mother always said, “Thank goodness you have a hard head.” 

When I was little, I was coordinated, but I still would run head-on into an object. Back in the day, there were no flat-screen televisions.  TVs were inside a piece of ornate furniture carved on the bottom.  If I were rolling around on the floor, I would find the sharpest point on the carving and hit my head on it.  I danced on the top of my mother’s ironing board.  She walked into the room and dove over the bed to save me.

As I learned to ride a bike, my mother faced new challenges.  I don’t think I had ADHD, but what was I doing when I rode my bike into a telephone pole?  Crashing into curbs was a daily occurrence.  I loved to look around while going downhill on my bike; whoops. I think ADHD was called “not paying attention” in the 1960s.  I heard those words yelled to me by my dear mother.

The accidents continued into adulthood.  While living in Maine, we had a narrow back staircase which I ran down one morning in just my socks.  I landed first on the back of my head as my body flew down the stairs and onto a slate floor.  The MRI was clear of any injuries.  My first attempt at skiing was to hit an ice patch…back of my head hit first.  Thank goodness I had a helmet on my hard head.  I walked back to the ski lodge, never to return.

I now know my limitations.