I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.
Joan Didion
December 2013 marks the ten year anniversary of an accident that changed my life immediately and permanently. It is something I first wrote about back in 2018. I fell over 15 feet while rock climbing. The fall shattered my elbow and sprained both of my wrists and both of my ankles. I ended up needing 3 surgeries on my elbow over the span of two years. After each surgery the elbow joint became fixed at 90 degrees. To get even some of my mobility back, I needed to complete painful, tedious physical therapy exercises for my arm and hand daily.
Now, the scars on my arm are no longer so obvious and my hand no longer spasms. The fear of heights that enveloped me after has quieted from a roar down to a whisper. But I can’t turn my left hand palm facing up, or touch my left shoulder with that hand. I do need to use a brace from time to time for this wrist or that elbow. And the doctors tell me I will get arthritis eventually. There is also the more subtle, yet infinitely more substantial damage.
Recently, I asked my dad if I was particularly scared of anything as a young child. Without thinking he responded, Unfortunately not. According to him, even as a baby I never wanted to face anyone when they held me. I would always try to turn around to see what was happening around me. And as soon as I could walk, I started running away from my parents. Eager to see whatever was right around the corner. I guess I wanted to experience as much as I could from the very beginning.
When I was maybe nine or ten years old, I remember hugging a pine tree some 30 feet up in the air. I was standing on a wooden platform, waiting for my turn to jump as part of a rope course. It was some sort of school field trip. I let go of the tree, eager to go before the poor teenage employee shouted at me to keep holding on so they could finish tying me in. Even at that age, I took pride in not being afraid of danger. I saw it as something that set me apart from other girls my age in a positive way, even as we were being conditioned for meekness. While bravery was a trait valued highly in the boys, we needed to understand that the world was a scarier place for us. I prided myself on rejecting that notion, even back then.
I assumed that I would grow up to cross off all the typical big ticket items from my bucket list. Parachuting from a plane or bungee jumping, for example. But after the fall, my heart would race just standing near the edge of a steep slope. And the desires I had before today seem more to me like nightmares.
Now, I don’t think I’ll ever do those things. My interests have shifted towards a softer, more gentle gravity. I don’t think this is inherently a bad thing, but I also don’t consider it a choice.
As I continue to age, I keep collecting and working through my fears alongside my experiences. A fear of heights after my accident. A fear of flying after an emergency landing in a plane. A fear of sleeping in tall buildings after the 2017 earthquake in Mexico City.
And more importantly, I have my inner fears to contend with. And I keep working through them to create that same uneasy truce, or perhaps what can more accurately be described as a functional working relationship. The ones we all have to varying degrees. Fears of feeling my emotions, or being alone, or truly loving other people. The fear that comes from a life worth living. Of slowly, painfully breaking my own heart wide open, even if it takes all the time I have left.
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