I've been offline for a few days because of two things:

1. I bought a new moped like I always wanted yayyyyyy 

and 

2. I fell off of it.. boooooooooo

I was super excited to finally have the beautiful moped of my dreams. I, being overly confident, expected I would be just like Scootaloo, speeding around from here to there like a pro, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I had some practice at first in my driveway getting warmed up, then after a day I figured I was ready for my first long ride. I packed up my Totoro backpack with my phone, manga, earbuds, and wallet and headed out the door. I did a safety check on my scooter, strapped on my helmet, and got going. My destination was the library to return the book that was a week overdue. It was going great, and I was having so much fun. It was only going to take 1.9 miles to get there. I didn't take into account how it was getting dark then. I was only a block away from the library when I started getting shaky, and it only took my hitting the curb once for it to happen. It all happened so fast that it was so scary... I was going 10 mph since I slowed down, but I fell off on the main road. My moped slid, my earbuds came out of my ears, and I landed in the dirt. I picked myself up and immediately spat out dirt and blood. Then I panicked and ran to my moped to see if it still even worked. I moved it onto the sidewalk and took out my phone and used the flashlight to check for damage. Then I used my camera to check out my face, and my right eye was red and my lower lip was swollen. I called my family and my boyfriend to let them know what happened. They insisted on picking me up, but I decided to tough it out and ride home. When I felt okay enough, I hopped back on and headed home.

I don't know if it was the adrenaline or anxiety, but I didn't fully feel my injuries until I got home. I looked in my bathroom mirror and realized my bottom lip and parts of my face and chin had scrapes, and my eye was super red and tender. Luckily, I wore a helmet, long sleeves, pants, and gloves, so everything was okay, just my left knee and body were sore (no bruising, so yay!).

At this point, it was 10 p.m., and I called my best friend to see if she would be willing to come with me to the site to help me look for my Samsung earbuds that had fallen out. Of course, she said yes. She raced over to my place, then headed to where I fell to start looking. It didn't even take us five minutes before we found my buds. They were in the dirt right next to each other, so it was an easy score.

All in all, I'm just so grateful. I only got a swollen lip, some scrapes, and a sore body. I'm definitely going to only make short trips from now on and not ride in the evening if I can avoid it. The whole thing was super scary. I've mostly been eating soups and smoothies since the inside of my lower lip is all scraped up and sore that it hurts to chew.

Maybe later I'll post pictures of my moped. Mechanically, it's okay, but cosmetically, the paint was scraped and there's a small, one-inch crack on the side of the body. But truth be told, that doesn't matter because what does matter is that I'm okay.