Falling

I explore the world around me, without taking a step. I search every detail with my eyes, looking for something that I'm not even sure exists. I don't find it. In it's place are leaves, covering every surface around me. And somehow it's enough. I see a spectrum of yellow and gold and auburn and a deep, crimson red. They are the most beautiful, the red ones. Before they fall to join the rest of the leaves on the ground, they will brown and die; but for now they remain a defiant and vibrant, rich red. There is both a beauty and sadness in the season of fall. The colors are beautiful. But when all the leaves have browned and shed, the trees are left barren in the cold. The leaves that once resembled beauty to us, now lay on the ground, an ugly burnt-out brown. We don't even hesitate to step on them.

Or maybe the after-math isn't the problem; maybe it's the connection to 'fall'. When the description of falling is made there is clenching in your chest or your stomach squeezes, you either find that the experience gives you a rush or a sense of dread. Falling can give someone an exillrating feeling of being more alive than ever. Or it could give the feeling that the end is near. Falling is a fear that can hold a person back or keep them from foolishly harming themselves.

Falling isn't only a physical matter either. One can feel the drop in the pit of their stomach in other ways as well. There is a general feeling that some people feel; they never feel stable, feel like they will never achieve anything or that they are slowly and constantly regressing, always hopeless. It's like inside every person there is this pit, void. If your lucky, yours is small. Like a pot hole, that you occationally drive through because it's in the way to where you're going, and that pot hole is not going to stop you. But others are with a certain likeness to the mythical pit of Tartarus. It has a long fall that seems to last forever, it engrosses all of you. And when you finally get to the bottom, it's even worse.

Fears are strongly connected to the concept of someone being 'crazy' or 'needing help'. The so-called polite ways of refering to such situations are so demeaning towards the person to whom they refer. Falling apart is still a type of falling, and it greets you with a similar feeling to the desent into yourown void. Hopeless. Scared. Possibly angry. I mean, when someone is falling apart and they themselves can't even stop it. Yet someone comes to them, tells them what is 'wrong' withthem and that they know how to 'fix' them. No one wants to be told that somethings 'wrong' with them. Nor that they need to be 'fixed', as if they were a broken toy that no one wanted. And how could this other person possible know something that they themselves didn't know. Because, odds are, they know that they are either falling apart or already in pieces. And they've been trying, hard, to put the puzzle back together. They either know if there is hope to be kept or not. And there isn't much anyone can tell them that they haven't been thinking about for awhile. They are the only person who is trapped in the confines of their bodies, brains, souls.

So next time you say the word fall. Let it linger in the air a little. Let the thoughts settle in your mind. Is the word anymore significant? I hope it is. I find the word is filled tightly with strong emotions, in many ways. I won't ask you how it makes you feel. I won't get an answer.

But I hope you can spare it a thought.