Falling & Flying

I am about to make a leap. I am planning on giving up my career, as a therapist in private practice, and re-inventing myself. I’ve given myself some time to think about it. The idea, with its major dose of uncertainty, thrills and frightens me. I didn’t even know this course of action would call me, like it does, until a few weeks ago. Since then I’ve been filled with creative ideas for re-making myself. So far this has been fun. It has also been dreadful, as I find myself anticipating financial vulnerability, the loss of meaning, and the surrender really required to become someone new. In the process I find myself reflecting on the seemingly twin processes of falling and flying.

I learned recently, from a poem of Rumi, that birds have to fall before they learn to fly. No falling, no flying. Since then, I’ve been captivated by the image.

In looking back over my life I can see periods of falling, dark times when uncertainty abounded and hopelessness seemed to be my lot. I can also see times when I seemed to be flying, times of self-discovery, love, and unbounded possibility. What I notice now, what takes my breath away, is that from the vantage point of my aging vision, I never seemed to be able to tell one from the other.

I know that to accomplish the leap that seems to be calling and awaiting me, I’m going to have to fall, maybe fly some, fall even more, and put everything at risk, to fly some more. I keep thinking it would be good for me if I knew the difference. I thought I did, but now, I’m not so sure, that I could recognize it, or do anything about it.

I have learned, looking back, that when I thought I was falling, and was lost, alone and afraid, that I was actually flying, a creature in a dark sky. When I thought I was flying, seemingly assured I was going somewhere, feeling a modicum of control, I was actually tumbling, with disarray toward my inevitable end. Through some trickery, a reversal happens, that I fail to notice, so greatly am I tied up in believing I have an idea about what is going on.

Flying and falling. They both accompany the kind of leap I am anticipating. At least, I hope so. I know I am most afraid of the falling. Maybe that is all I will know. My worst fears gather around being old, infirm, helpless, unknown, falling by the wayside. It helps to know that this might be what flying looks like. But, I’m only human, I don’t actually know, even my experience and the way I think about it, might lead me to misunderstand, to think myself arrived when I’m actually underway, to believe I am falling or flying, when all along it is the opposite.

I don’t get to know with any certainty. I just get to leap. It appears that it really makes no difference what I know, or what I think I know, I get to have the consequences of leaping, or not leaping, anyway.

That’s why I call this leap, a mundane career change by a nearly senior citizen, throwing myself into the grave. No matter what, that is where I end up. Knowing, or not knowing, falling, or flying, it all leads to the same place. Ah, but the manner of going, isn’t that my saving grace? Throwing myself, isn’t that flying? Isn’t that more dignified, and better, than just falling into the grave? Could be, but there is this pesky awareness, that I can’t really tell the difference, and stuff keeps changing into its opposite.

What is a mere human to do? Fall and fly, never be sure which is which, and risk it anyway. Yes, I guess so. I can hardly believe, or tolerate, that being human has to mean being so vulnerable. The grave takes on a more inviting hue from the perspective of life. I think peace is an inviting prospect. But on the other hand; no flying at all, doesn’t seem worth the possibility of peace. Leaping, will no doubt do me in, but so will not leaping. This is all I get to decide, which way I go into the grave. Flying, or falling, it will ultimately all be the same. But, I know I will be different for having given myself the chance to enter the grave kicking.

I don’t know about you, but I find that having to make this level of choice is both hard (almost impossible) and makes living worth doing. The uncertainty is difficult but I don’t think I would relish life so much without it.