safety chutes

All I want to do is write and yet I’m not. I haven’t. I’ve put it off with the belabored process of trying to buy a used ibook. I decided it was the key to getting my writing done (um, yeah, kind of like starting this blog--don't remind me). It would be the place, the thing that would hold all my writing--my years of blue spiral bounds replaced by Macintosh. They say I can pick it up tonight, then I’ll start to write—for real. I know it’s all a big stall. I guess I am afraid to start because I know there is something coming. I feel my characteristic courage pushing through, even as I write shit (or, as is more common these day, don’t write shit). I do other things and think about the dozen stories started in my mind. Other things like last night.

Last night I had beers with three guys—a friend and his two roommates I’d never met before. I like meeting new people. I have confidence in my first impression. I know how to pepper the conversation with the right bits to make my life sound interesting. I can juice it down. (Life can be so much banal routine; it’s easy to know what to leave out.) But, we talked about boy things, since I was outnumbered and amenable. Skydiving, bungee jumping—to me it’s all falling and unappealing. I have no desire to fall. Flying sounds fantastic, but falling sounds like a silly adrenalin gimmick. “It’s about facing that fear,” said guy number two. “It’s about pushing beyond my limits and overcoming them.” Why, though? “Then when I want to drop into a killer line, or jump off a 30-foot cliff, I won’t have that fear standing in the way.” He responded. “Plus, it’s totally safe.” Riiight, now I see. It was the cliché boy response, but it got me thinking about why anyone would want to do this. The notion of fighting fears and disconnecting the neurological wiring that was genetically developed to keep us safe seems counterintuitive, yet we seek it out. Though I can't ever imagine myself jumping out of a plane, I do it too, in my own ways. Why should overcoming fear give us such a rush? I glanced across the table at my friend—the one who has struggled with relationships since I met him. He gets afraid and runs. There are lots of details and circumstances that make up the different ex-stories, but the juiced-down version is always the same story (very banal, because it’s life). I felt exposed as the only girl, so I had to wait until number two and three went to bed to ask guy number one, my old friend, my real questions about facing, fighting, overcoming fears.

Guys will hurl themselves from planes, leap with faith in a long elastic band, and sail off cliff baying with glee “why not face fear of commitment, fear of intimacy, and the other real male fears with the same gusto?” I asked. He smiled awkwardly and scoffed some reply “because skydiving is just about me. With relationships there’s a whole other person.” Hm. Unsatisfying. Perhaps this man will put more faith in a packed chute or an elastic chord than a woman. I guess it makes sense if you’ve hit the ground before. Maybe falling in love isn’t much different. We go in for the rush and thrill and when we hit that critical elevation we hold our breath and go for the pull chord. Then maybe, I thought, skydiving is not about facing fears at all, but putting yourself in the most frightening moment and discovering you are actually totally safe.