Letting go of the parachute
The vulnerability of feeling joy.
Do you ever have those moments where life is going along swimmingly and you stop yourself in your tracks to ask yourself, (gulp) 'What if I f**k this up?'
Or take yourself to a place in the future when you know the joyful moment that you are in right now will be OVER. FOREVER.
What a bummer.
There's a name for it and it's called foreboding joy; which, ta-da, is our feeling of the week.
Joy is a vulnerable emotion.
We are leaning into life, tipping ourselves willingly into the free-fall feeling that joy brings.
Free-falling is exhilarating... and scary.
So we pull the cord of caution to protect ourselves against that feeling with a:
'WHAT IF...'
It's in my mind at the moment, because I'm living it.
I have one son who has finished his A Levels and we keep on trying to make time together before all of his friends finish and he then gets swept up into the summer and the before-we-know-it leaving for university.
Except, I have a thing one day and then he has a thing the next day and then there's a dentist appointment or the rain means that what we had planned will be a wash out.
So instead, we snatch quick conversations and laughs and, 'Will you be home in time for dinners' that have always been there, and both of us keep on reassuring each other that we really will make time.
It is a joy to watch him. Full of confidence and charisma, he is striding into life.
And as he does so, I pull my parachute:
'He won't be here soon, so you had better make sure you make the most of every minute... see how you are wasting it!'
I have a choice:
Either beat myself up that we are not 'doing the things', or to take the moments that come out of nowhere, unplanned, un-orchestrated, unworthy of an Instagram reel, but so full of the 18 years of togetherness that we have had that they make me feel oh so proud and oh so grateful.
The joy of loving tightly and letting go all at the same time.
What's that saying?
'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.'
And life hurtles past us at the breakneck speed of free-fall.
Last week was my birthday.
I turned 49.
The phrase 'my age is my asset' kept on rolling around in my head.
I thought about how, at 9 my age was my asset in that I held a kernel of hope in life that has always borne fruit.
At 19, my age was my asset as I tucked my fear under my arm and strode into life with determination.
At 29, my age was my asset as I entered marriage with a day break of optimism.
At 39, my age was my asset as I collected heart shards and learnt the art of kintsugi for the soul.
At 49, my age is my asset as I dance with discernment and ditch doubt.
If only I had a poem for tha...
Oh, hang on, here you go!
Don’t lament your age today,
For give it a few years
When there’s knees that crack at every move
And hairs sprouting from your ears
You’ll cry out:
"I’ve lost my youth,
Oh no, I’m so perplexed!
How’d I get to this old age
That’s left me rather vexed?!
Take me back to that verdant time
When my youth was on display.
Well... compared to now at least,
Oh I’ve frittered the years away!"
Please remember before you ruminate:
Today
You’re as young
As you’ll ever be!
So celebrate your youth today,
Even if you’re 93!
Life, if anything, is a constant cycle of loving tightly and letting go.
So let us not caution ourselves, as much as we can.
Let us lean into the letting go that feeling joy requires of us and know that, if we do so, we will not need our parachute, because we will have learnt to grow our wings.
That's it for now,
'Til next time.
Jacky ✨