[Originally posted May, 2018. 30 days of prose, day 10. – Owen]
Falling in love is like stepping off of a flying airplane; them loving you back would be the parachute. But that parachute doesn’t always open.
Splat.
Love in relationships always comes with risk. We can’t know what others are really thinking, and we can’t know how years or circumstances might change them. But we step out anyway.
And sometimes, we crash.
Hearts, however, are usually stronger than bodies, kind of like the flight recorder on a airplane.* They are usually ready shortly for service on another flight. The decision to step off a plane again, though, gets much harder.
Before I met my wife, I had lots and lots of practice at falling in love. Many of these were more like falling of a curb than an airplane: short fall, easy landing, right back up, no problem. But others were harder: awkward falls off of bicycles, and diving boards, and even a roof or two.
Finally, I stepped off a plane for real, and man did it feel good. Scenery rushing by, blue skies, green pastures, and another person there with me. It was such a rush.
Then I hit ground, hard, in a fenced off area called “divorce”. As I lay there, wounded, I saw her (my ex) bounce immediately up and get on another plane.
One person’s crash is another person’s escape, I guess.
So why do we do it? Why do we try again?
I can’t answer for you, but I can answer for myself. I loved the feeling that came with stepping off of that airplane, and I wanted to feel it again. In addition, I wasn’t going to let one person stand in for any other person I might love for the rest of my life. For that next person might be my parachute, and I might be hers.
The other reason I had for trying again came from an observation I’d made, which was: planes can crash whether we ever get off them or not. Isolating myself hadn’t prevented crashes in the past, but it had prevented joy.
In the end, we love because we’re made to love, and because the choices of others do not determine who we are.
But it sure feels like they do those times we hit ground.
* I innocently asked my dad when I was a kid why they didn’t make planes out of the same material as flight recorders so that people would survive the crash. I got a long explanation on the aerodynamics of heavier metals.
We love because we are made to love. Nice
Thank you!
Precise yet beautifully explained👍🚬
Thanks. Those landings can be tough, though.
The first two lines really stood out!! kudos to that.
It was an awesome read 🙂
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Really loved this analogy. Your writing style is so easy to read, with a gentle flow to it that makes me want it to go on for much longer.
Thank you. I will unashamedly admit that compliment is liable to stay with me for awhile. 🙂
Splat.
I’m boarding the plane as we speak. This was a timely piece, I wonder how you do that.
I agree with Claudette, the more words you write, the better, Owen. Poetry or prose, it matters not.
All of the above, and more. My parachute has worked pretty well for the past 44 years!
Really digging this analogy. I am, for the time being, grounded. Can’t get through security to board that next plane. (I think my attempts to extend the analogy are falling a little flat, no pun intended.)
😂
Such a beautiful read
I liked this post last year, and I still like it now (although there’s no option to give it a second star).
Second time round this stands out more than last time: “Isolating myself hadn’t prevented crashes in the past, but it had prevented joy.” I’m adding it to my collection of things to read semi-regularly