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freefall (april, part one)

May 01, 2006

i've forgotten how to do this.

i can't entirely reconstruct the last few weeks. it's only been a few weeks, but it feels like... well, like a cliche, i suppose. it feels like a lifetime. no, not a lifetime, but just a life. a thing, a song with one mood, broken only by a single bridge, with choruses that do little more than sum it all up.

time has little to do with it, you see, because i jumped further, finally, further than just an extra moment in time. i jumped sideways and upwards and out, not just further down the ray my life has steadfastly lurched along for two decades.

the previous leaps that seemed so bold in my life were feeble. some part of me was always conscious of where the edges were, and of my balance. i knew how hard to jump, so that i cleared a little ground, but didn't leap off of the familiar platforms that others had created for me.

i was always conscious of the harness that was more about fear than safety. i jumped this time clutching fewer of the tethers that i had always at once railed against, despised, and depended on. even when they were slackened, i felt the reassuring weight of those ropes that might become strained, but would still undoubtedly break my fall - the approval of my parents, the continuing easy promise of an empty career. and again, there was my own fear, my own cowardice, and my own repeated failures to hold some faith in myself.

the first week was a matter of bravado, the adrenaline-ridden exhiliration of freefall, of the knowledge that i had stepped from the plane, unsure of whether the pack strapped to my back held a parachute, or just a diary and a bible with the same empty pages.

i ran, i biked, lifted weights, laid in the sun, looked for work. i felt the assurance of my own body, and some sense of the sort of self-awareness i felt during the hours of the marathon.

the rush went to my head. i wasn't ready for that kind of acceleration, and i wore out quickly. i backed off for a day, and then another.

and then, i realized that i was just falling. the moment of choice, and any self-affirmation that arose from it, had passed, was no longer relevant. i hated the direction of my life, and i exerted force through will to change that inertia. but i had only traded one sort of inertia for another. now, it was just a matter of gravity, a steady roar of wind in my ears so constant and steady and overwhelming that it was no different than silence, like the droning of asphalt beneath a truck at four in the morning.

nights and mornings and afternoons blurred, not out of indolence, not for a lack of structure, but because there was no meaning to differentiate them. my friends called, emailed, left comments on the blog, but many are only now getting answers, because i haven't known what to say to them (except thank you, thank you, and i love you all).

i ran a 10K race, and once again, i couldn't push myself. the question, and the dire need for an answer to it, had returned: why?

in the midst of this, passover came. an observance of sorrow and joy. an invitation, a seder dinner, and there i met frances. that night, we began to read, began to write a new story that changed nothing, and everything.

Posted by Rob at May 1, 2006 10:34 PM

Comments

Posted by: Tim at May 4, 2006 12:48 PM

Posted by: Steph~ at May 8, 2006 05:15 PM

Posted by: mike at May 10, 2006 05:30 PM

Posted by: Heather at May 12, 2006 10:13 AM

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