Freefall

Almost a month ago, I did something that- for a person like me- was inconceivable.

People who know me best know that I am a person who is not only terrified of heights, I am literally phobic about them. I cannot ride in an airplane without a tranquilizer. I will pay extra money to avoid having a window seat. I get queasy in tall buildings, avoiding any window views, and if an elevator is glass enclosed I will NOT ride in it. Not even if Shangri-La were at the top.

Yet on the date of my second anniversary of marriage to Salome, I climbed into a steel cage, was lifted 130 feet in the air (the equivalent of an 8 story building), and with nothing but reinforced elastic affixed to my ankles, I jumped head-first out into the open air.

Yes, I rebounded (painfully, truth be told). Yes, the adrenaline rush was incomparable. But when pressed by my family (who witnessed the event), I could not come up with a single reason as to why. Jokingly, I told them that it was because I had turned 37 three days prior, and wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't 'old'.

This was not the truth. Merely rationalization of a rather insane act. At the time, I didn't know what the truth was.

I have since studied the pictures on occasion: my arms outstretched, wind whipping through my wild and untameable hair, upside-down against an azure evening sky tinted with a gentle hint of lavender.

I am proud of myself. I admit it.

But as I dwell on the last month, I also realize there was more to it than just simple thrill-seeking. I have always been afraid of making choices, because choices are, by their very nature, a limiting act. It is the acceptance of an option to the exclusion of all others: the sound of multiple doors slamming shut, with only one remaining open.

Of course, often this is a good and necessary thing: my decision to pursue theatre at an early age, for example, shut the door on my option to ever become a chemist (that plus the fact that I openly cheated to get a passing grade in my high school chemistry class). At other times, however, the differences between decisions is not so clear-cut or easy. Nor is the outcome so readily predefined.

I have been very lucky in my life, in that I have been able to do most of the things I have wanted to do. Or done things I thought I have wanted to do, only to find out that they weren't. To date, I have been: an actor, a factory worker, a published author and a food server. I have managed businesses and I have pastored a church. I have been a theater critic (not my finest moment) and tended bar. I have attended seminary and I have attended business school; enthralled with the one and thoroughly bored with the other. But regardless of which ever academic or vocational pursuit, it has always been on my terms, and I am proud of that.

But only Peter Pan flies forever, and eventually choices must be made. While what follows may sound like a great deal of self-pity, I want to say that I do not regret a single decision I have made. My marriage to Salome, my decision to leave the ministry, my stable Mon-Fri job (or in the case of this last week, my stable Mon-through-Mon-through-Friday job), nor the decision to try and bring a 'Pup' into the world (and succeeding sometime in December). Every decision that has led me to this here- this now- is not one that I have any regret over.

At present, however, I'm just not thrilled with the results.

As evidenced by my last post- which was sometime over a month ago- Salome and I are living in a city that I vowed never to reside in again, awaiting the closing of a house sale that has already fallen through once, while we pay rent on another.

And I realize that I am here, now, with no doors to go through or choices to make. Things are pre-planned now, mapped out, and if there was ever a time for spontaneity, it is NOT now.

The last couple of months have made me a Calvinist.

And also made me feel like I am life's bitch.

My life is now a series of deadlines and expectations now. Responsibilities and duties; placating and pleasing. I feel as if I am at the beck and call of everyone: from angry practitioner to domesticated housepet, feeling like I have neither the right nor the opportunity to make decisions, but merely to react. To be where I am supposed to be. To say the things that need to be heard. To enter the appropriate fields, fill out the appropriate paperwork, and make the appropriate gesture.

Don't get me wrong: it's not like I don't get anything out of this. I have some very nice toys as a result. And I am very grateful- not for the toys, but for the opportunities I have. But I am lost somewhere in all of this, feeling as if no matter where I am, I am not quite there, because the things that I think and the things that I feel shouldn't be said. I feel present, but irrelevant; a means to an end. A facilitator, a broker, an arbiter.

So if you speak to me, and your sentence starts with 'You need to...' or 'You should...', know that I hear you. I totally agree. And I will most definitely try.

Just know that every so often, without warning or forethought, I may do something unexpected. Neither dumb nor terribly dangerous; nothing that jeopardizes position or place. Just something... out of character. Something unlike me.

Something like a leap, to let me know I'm still alive, and that not every moment is preordained.