It’s the Crashes that Kill Me
I can handle the fact that there are lows. I can handle the fact that the world isn’t all sunshiny all the time. No one’s is.
What’s so hard for me to handle, from the outside, is the whiplash. The fact that everything can be relatively normal and fine for a moment and then… something happens. It doesn’t have to be something large, in fact sometimes it can be quite small. But whatever that something is, it destroys the world and suddenly everything is on fire. That smash - that crashing fall - that’s what kills me.
I remember a West Wing episode where they were talking about something that had happened and how everyone was focused on inconsequential details. CJ said something about it not mattering where you land, the fall is what kills you. That’s how I feel. That damned flying free-fall... with nothing to hold onto, no recognizable landmarks, no way to get my bearings, the fluttering of a badly tattered flag of hope whipping past us as we leave all known territories with no knowledge of when or if we will land. The fall kills me every time.
So maybe CJ was right. It's not where we land - because then at least we've landed, and can figure out the terrain and see if there is hope for survival in this new land or see if there is a path that can be carved back to where we want to be. It's that thrice damned crashing, smashing, thrashing fall.
What’s so hard for me to handle, from the outside, is the whiplash. The fact that everything can be relatively normal and fine for a moment and then… something happens. It doesn’t have to be something large, in fact sometimes it can be quite small. But whatever that something is, it destroys the world and suddenly everything is on fire. That smash - that crashing fall - that’s what kills me.
I remember a West Wing episode where they were talking about something that had happened and how everyone was focused on inconsequential details. CJ said something about it not mattering where you land, the fall is what kills you. That’s how I feel. That damned flying free-fall... with nothing to hold onto, no recognizable landmarks, no way to get my bearings, the fluttering of a badly tattered flag of hope whipping past us as we leave all known territories with no knowledge of when or if we will land. The fall kills me every time.
So maybe CJ was right. It's not where we land - because then at least we've landed, and can figure out the terrain and see if there is hope for survival in this new land or see if there is a path that can be carved back to where we want to be. It's that thrice damned crashing, smashing, thrashing fall.
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