It's come to my attention that as a divorcee living abroad, I'm inclined to risk my life in order to accomplish one goal - live as if tomorrow were my last day. Notice I didn't say "today" was my last? That's because deep, deep down, I really don't want to die today, I'd rather die tomorrow. This week has been a plethora of injuries to my not-so-youthful body in order to accomplish my goal. (Seriously, I'm surprised I didn't break a hip).

I began the week with a rollerskating outing with my much younger friends (none of them are over 30).  I had discovered the place when I was bombing around on my bike one evening - an outdoor skating rink and all-around cool, hip and fun park in the Olympic Village. Apparently, skating is not a thing for the present generation of under 30's because I was the only one who had ever skated. We rented our skates, which were less than $1.50, and proceeded to do everything within our power not to fall down. Now, I had skated before, but that was oh, 30 years ago, so I was a little wobbly on my rollerskates. And, yes, I rented the old-fashioned rollerskates because that's what I used in the olden days. My friends, however, were more drawn to the inline variety. My skates were a dull, raggedy brown that looked like they'd been donated and dropped off in the 1950's via parachute into China. My friends had skates with cool colors like lime green and cobalt blue.  I took one look at the rollerblades and decided I could never skate on them, so I put down my pride and wore the ugly ones. We skated for an hour, and to my surprise, I wasn't falling down. Oh, don't get me wrong, there were a couple of close calls, but I made it one full hour without wiping out. We were just about to wrap up our fun when we stopped to watch a bunch of people dancing. The music had a great beat, so we were trying to be funny "skating" while standing in place, and that's when it happened. BAM! I fell and landed on my right arm. Two of the guys had to heave me up. It was amusing, since nothing seemed broken, and we proceeded to head on to the next venue - pizza!

I don't know if it was the feeling of having had skates on, or the wedge shoes I could barely walk in, or the fact that the floor in the subway station was like an ice skating rink, but I suppose all of those things combined were the perfect storm for my next performance. We were walking through the subway station and I dropped my subway card. I simply bent over to pick it up, and my legs slipped out from under me. But I didn't just fall. No, it was more like I ran in place, my feet in mid air, and dove to the floor. I laid there for a minute, laughing hysterically, while three of my friends tried to lift me up. (Note: when you fall down at my age, the prospect of getting to lay down for any reason, even if it's in a subway station, feels better than the prospect of having to get up off the floor. It's simply too much work). Again, no broken bones, just a bruise on the leg and hip.

The next day I looked like I'd been hit by a car, or at least my elbow did. I wasn't too sore, though, and other than not wanting to scare my students with the sight of my bruised arm, I felt pretty good. But a couple of nights later I went out on my bike to meet a friend. We were goofing around and he jumped on the back of the bike, and I fell off, landing on my face. It wasn't a hard fall, but it was my FACE! And somehow, my leg also got tangled up in the mayhem, but all I could think about was my face on the pavement. Thankfully, it was only a minor bruising on the face (my leg got it much worse), and with a little cover-up I don't think anyone even noticed it.

Now, it's bad enough to fall down in front of your own friends, or in the subway station, but I think the most embarrassing fall was when I went to test drive a new bike at the Giant Bicycle Shop. You know, one of those stores where only cool, athletic, coordinated people go to shop. I took the bike around for a spin (the salesman gave me permission to do this), and as I tried to turn a corner I fell into a shoe display. But horror of horrors, the display was located near a row of bikes, and I couldn't keep from falling into them, either. In my mind, I pictured the whole row falling down like dominoes, causing a huge crash and all eyes to be forced upon me, not to mention the potential lawsuit for damaging the goods. Thankfully, I only managed to slightly knock over two of them, and only one salesman came over to see what was going on. It wasn't until we left the shop that I discovered the blood running down my leg from yet another wound I'd inflicted upon myself.

I don't know, I guess I'm living my youth all over again. Is this normal behavior, or am I the only woman pushing 50 who goes out rollerskating, or bike riding in the middle of the night? I sometimes feel like I did when I was in high school, when there were no consequences to being crazy and stupid. Come to think of it, I never pictured myself doing this kind of stuff at my age. I thought those days were long gone, and that I was destined to be sitting in front of the TV crocheting doilies. But here I am, living and working in a foreign land, and wondering what I must look like to the people around me.  Do they admire me? Do they find my behavior foolish? I guess at the end of the day I really don't care, because I'm living, at least for today.