Falling Up!

“Defy Gravity”

“Mrs. Kellems, Mrs. Kellems, we dropped the baby! We dropped the baby!!”

The fact that I was dropped as a baby, will NOT come as a surprise to any of my close friends.

(“Nowww it all makes sense! Yeah, but how many times did he bounce?”)

But what may surprise you is that I’ve be falling ever since.

Look up. Miles above the clouds, that’s where we are born. We arrive as sweet little cherubs circling high above the cumulus.  Tiny spirits of limitless possibility that float toward the clouds like unfettered feathers.

It’s in our childhood that we start to feel the need for speed. We are giddy with life as our descent increases. This death-defying freefall barely satiates the needs of the thrill-seeking adolescent. As teenagers, the inevitability of the approaching earth is the furthest thing from our minds.

Yet as we age, the thrilling ride of youth is abruptly interrupted as our decent pierces the clouds, and all we see is the earth below. Our mindset abruptly changes from flying high to impact.

Outside of the hormonal cocktail of youth, our rational minds have always realized that regardless of how high we fly, all our stories will end pretty much the same. End with a sudden impact, looking kinda like a meat waffle.

Depending on where we are on our journey, we may feel a gentle breeze as we fall through the clouds.  Others like me are experiencing a face altering gale-force wind that plasters my face into a quivering scream.    

“We’re ALL gonna DIE!!”   

Yet is aging just the realization of our impending doom, or could it be a prelude to a tremendous view?

Each of us get to decide. 

We get to decide where to focus. Either continue to fall face down, concentrating upon our final internment.

Or, in what might be our most significant act of faith, we can decide to put our hands behind our heads and fall looking up. 

Looking down is to focus on the destination. On our own final destruction.   

Looking up is to focus on the journey, which fills us with gratitude for all the joys and travails.

A life is a journey rich with blood, sweat, cheers and some fears.   

Looking back allows us to defy gravity.  It will enable us to slow down our minds.  To see and taste again, the banquets of events that we have dined.  

Yes, I’m still falling, but like a bejeweled hummingbird, I am learning to flout gravity and hang mindfully motionless in awe of that capricious journey we call life.