Last summer I made one of the stupidest decisions of my life. I went four-wheeling as the passenger of an inexperienced driver without a helmet in a hilly area.
How very poor this decision was became evident when our ATV failed to make it up a steep hill and almost flipped over us. Thanks to an accidental split decision by my friend to release the brake (and honestly, probably some divine protection), nothing bad happened, but my heart pounded in my chest knowing how close we had come to an accident.
This year I challenged myself to do a handstand. As I’ve practiced over the last month I’ve had one big concern. I think it’s what bothers most of us about hanging upside down with only two puny arms between our heads and gravity: what if I come crashing down, snap my neck and end up paralyzed for the rest of my life, just because I tried to do a stupid handstand? Maybe everyone isn’t plagued by this fear, but I have a very active imagination and it seems entirely possible.
This weekend it happened. Not the paralysis; the crashing to the ground. It happened because I’m getting better at handstands and I’m actually at the point of pushing my feet off the wall and trying to balance. It was going really well, and then I felt my feet floating past the point of no return, pulling me towards the floor.
A couple weeks into this handstand thing I started practicing something called a “pirouette bail.” This is basically a fancy name for picking one of your hands off the floor and slightly readjusting it so you can come out of your handstands more easily. Since I practice handstands every day, I have now completed this maneuver close to a hundred times.
Saturday when I lost my balance, my hands responded automatically. Without even thinking about it, I bailed. It wasn’t as lovely as my bails when I’m not speeding towards the ground, but I adjusted my hands and spun my body around to the side. I landed on my knees and not my feet, but it was a lot lighter than the last time I fell on my knees for the sake of this goal. No bruising involved… and, kind of obviously, no paralysis.
I sat on my bedroom floor for a second, curled up with my knees to my chest, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Then I broke out in a huge grin. I had fallen, and I was okay. I didn’t die. No one had to rush me to the hospital. My training had paid off.
I knew I had to get back up, right in that moment, and do another handstand. That if I decided to be done for the day, it would be that much harder to face the wall the next day. I pulled myself up and went back to it. The next time I started falling I recognized it much sooner and landed on my feet.
Last summer after the ATV slipped down the hill someone helped us get it up the incline and then we both got back on and kept riding.
You might wonder why. It was definitely not the safest decision. When we got to the top, another person in the party asked us “Weren’t you scared to keep going after you fell?”
“Yeah,” my friend responded, “but if I didn’t get back on now I knew I never would.”
I got back on for the same reason. I was afraid and unsure if it was the smartest thing to do, but I knew the chances of me ever getting back on an ATV would significantly decrease if I didn’t get back on right at the moment.
Falling isn’t fun, but it is only avoidable if we sit still in padded rooms and never do anything. This is not the life I choose to engage in. As a result, I will fall, and I will get hurt. I can learn to do things in a smarter way over time, and maybe I will not fall as hard or not get hurt as much. I will try to be careful, because I don’t want to inflict needless pain on myself or those around me.
Most importantly, I will force myself to get back up after I fall and keep going. I will not wait for the day when life feels safer, because I know that is a day I don’t want to see. I choose to live beyond my abilities, because that pushes my abilities to another level.
I choose to keep pushing beyond that, because when I fall I often fall into the arms of others, and I’m trying to learn to trust other people to help catch me. When they don’t, the ever-powerful hand of God comes again to lift me up, and my heart learns a little more about trusting Him.
Learning that is worth the risk of a few more falls.