stumbling down the stairs

I mentioned before that we turned our garage into a bedroom (and by we, I mean Jorn Junod!)  Kim had originally planned to have new carpet run up the stairs from the garage/bedroom level, but when we pulled the old carpet out, the hardwood stairs looked too good to cover up.  So we left the stairs naked.

After I got all the carpet nails pulled out (whoever named them carpet tacks was on some serious junk) I thought we were good to go.  But a funny thing happened on the way down the stairs.  And not just to me; Levi noticed the same strange phenomenon.

We stumbled.

I’m not sure if it was the simple fact that our feet expected to feel carpet but were met with bare wood, or if there was something freaky-deaky going on, but Levi and I both nearly tumbled down the stairs multiple times over the first few days of carpetless-stair navigation.

He, being a 15 year old young man, prone to loud outbursts of laughter, thought it was hilarious.  I, being a middle-aged man, often carrying my laptop, thought I was about to die.  He thought that was hilarious, too.

I think life is like our freshly shorn carpet.  When our situations change, they hit us in ways we’re unaccustomed to.  Our brains process the change slowly, and our bodies react to the new circumstances.  Sometimes we can laugh them off; other times they make us feel the impending doom of a faceplant. It happens to us all.

I want to be more like Levi–ready to laugh at my slip-ups. When I take myself too seriously I’m prone to get mad when I find myself caught off guard or embarrassed. I want to learn to lighten up and laugh, even when I’m at the bottom of the steps in a heap.