Always a duckling, never a swan.

As a young girl I wanted to be a ballerina (despite never having been in a class in my life). I would walk on my tip toes because I thought ballerinas walked that way all the time. This probably lead to my knee problems later in life, but I'll never really know. I always wanted to be that graceful girl on the stage until I realized my large feet and not-so-slim build probably wouldn't work out the best for that aspiration.

This week's Cheesy Bloggers theme is called, "Watch Your Step," and I wanted to write about a clumsy situation to commiserate with my fellow accident prone people.

Growing up I was always the girl who tried her hardest to sit up straight and walk with purpose, or so I thought. Looking back I probably looked pretty silly, making such an event of just walking from one point to the next, but it seemed so important to me then. I would strive to be a beautiful swan gliding gracefully through the playground during recess when I probably looked more like a clumsy duck waddling my way to the four-square area.

As I got older, becoming a soprano in the choir did not help my delusions of gracefulness. We were always told to sit up straight and express the music to reach the audience. While the facial expression in class and voice lessons helped me show my feelings on my face, the posture and demeanor only furthered my plight to be a graceful princess.

Instead of all my efforts showcasing me as a beautiful statueque woman, it turned out to make me look like a clumsy, regularly bruised person. I still have my "feminine wiles" about me, I've just come to the realization that I may not be as graceful and effortless looking as I think. This is punctuated by the fact that my husband reminds me of how not graceful I am. He means no harm, but he has made some effort in the past to point out how truly clumsy I am.

I don't have a specific story of my clumsiness that I can think of, but I do tend to drop anything that shouldn't be dropped, hit my head on things that are clearly in the way, and run into things that I could have easily avoided.

For some reason I have slight depth perception problems. I tend to take corners too sharp and hit my shoulders on the door frame. I almost always hit my head on any cabinet door that is above me, no matter how often I remind myself that it is there. I stub my toe on corners all the time. My husband actually took our bed frame apart and built a different one so I would stop bumping my hip on the foot board every night before getting into bed lol. I have also been known to trip over my own feet and snag my foot in my pants.

Being a part of the musical theater community now I know quite a few dancers. I no longer see ballerinas as such graceful creatures, but do still wonder how they can maneuver around so easily and without harm. Oh well, such is my life of aspiring to be graceful and settling for just not bumping into things.