The Girl Who Trips
I’ve always been the girl who trips. Not even metaphorically, like actually trips. Down the stairs, over curbs, cables, my own feet. Growing up, I was never cast as the ingénue or the tragic heroine. I was always the comedic relief, and they hit the nail right on the head in the typecasting department. There was a year in high school theater when I played the geriatric grandma in a musical and fell down mid-number, and the audience thought it was part of the bit. They laughed, so I committed. I had very little shame as a child – I think I was reserving all it for my twenties.
Three weeks ago, my roommate watched me fall down half a flight on the way out of my apartment building, then down on all fours out of the Uber less than fifteen minutes later. I’m the best friend with the random side plot that for whatever reason involves a cat. I’m the only person you know that can’t count on one hand how many times they’ve been hit by a car. “This would only happen to Jamie” is a repeat phrase in the vocabulary of my family and friends. I’m everyone’s favorite disaster.
As I’m getting older I’m realizing that if you pretend being laughed at is intentional long enough, it starts to look like confidence. That’s how I learned to survive middle school. And college. And unemployment. And Instagram.
I’m generally pretty okay with being the one that falls. Self-deprecation is my bread and butter, and I do some of my best comedic work as the butt of the joke. But if we’ve learned anything from Harry Potter, the only real redemption arc in my character’s trope is to save the day, which is just far too much pressure. I can’t take off my misfortune and be super hot underneath like the nerd takes off her glasses at the end of the film. Neville Longbottom was only hot because he destroyed the last horcrux, and I definitely should not be trusted to do that. Even Jack Sparrow is frequently underestimated as drunk and ridiculous, but his chaotic plans, albeit accidentally, always end up working out.
The best part of being the comedic relief is falling upwards. There’s a kind of security in it; the idea that no matter how many times you crash, it somehow lands you somewhere softer, or at least funnier. Falling upwards is resilience disguised as slapstick. It’s the privilege of chaos with a safety net, where every wipeout gets edited into a blooper reel instead of a cautionary tale. People love the girl who gets back up and laughs it off. They clap when she dusts herself off and calls it character development.
But I don’t fall upwards. I fall down. There’s no clever edit or soft landing, no niche indie soundtrack swelling in the background. I don’t tumble into opportunity; I eat concrete in public and walk it off like nothing happened. My failures don’t turn into redemption arcs, they turn into stories that I’ll slightly exaggerate with each retell. I’m less fail forward and more fail sideways, repeatedly, in broad daylight. I used to think my casting directors saw something in me, some spark of humor or relatability. I think they actually saw someone who could make failure look charming. Maybe that’s a breakthrough narrative in itself, or maybe it’s still coming. But for now, I’m not convinced that I’m falling towards growth. I’m falling towards gravity, consistently, and on brand. I should really get health insurance.
