The Steeps
How much momentum on the way down does it take to go back up?
“Things can only go up from here.” My mom told me numerous times between the years of 2011 - 2019. I remember at the time not believing her, and being proven correct, to one extent or another again and again, and again.
In August of 2019 when my father passed away, there was a strangely cathartic feeling that washed over me a couple weeks after. “Maybe things will start to go up. This is the floor, and it feels like it’s made of diamond.” Impenetrable, even if I wanted to dig further down I’d need equipment far past my means. But of course the end is never the end is never the end. Covid hit shortly after, and all of a sudden that diamond floor fell at least another 10 feet right under me. Just enough to stagger me and remind myself that the floor itself can fall.
Maybe that’s why in these past few months, everything has felt so low. Unsteady, like the floor shakes and wiggles down centimeter by centimeter with the slightest twist of a hip when I try and change direction. Maybe the source of anxiety for me comes from knowing in the past that things can always get worse. No matter how bad things feel right now, a misstep or dash of bad luck and it’ll get worse.
Recently I’ve been trying to be more open with people, especially those closest to me. As I feel like that’s a big reason my most recent relationship failed, and it’s a major character flaw that I’ve been aware of for a while. I’d never been very vulnerable with my mother, but recently I spilled my guts and explained my woes. She did as any loving mother would and consoled me, but gave an interesting idea. “After your father passed I’ve started my day by saying ‘David, show me something beautiful today.’ Try it sometime, trust me.” In that blind sense of trust and belief, I took her advice. Most days I’ve started saying to myself “Dad, if you can’t grant me luck, show me something beautiful today.” Since I’ve started doing that, I’ve been able to adopt a lovely Australian Shepherd Mix named Bella, who somehow fits into my life just about perfectly. I’ve started finally getting phone calls and emails back regarding job opportunities. Hawks, deer, and foxes have seemingly crossed my path more often now. I feel like I’ve really began healing again.
This makes me wonder, is my deceased father really watching me? Is he influencing people to give me an opportunity in my career? What about wildlife and sunsets? Is he physically encapsulating these things? What I think is more likely, and some may agree with me, is that my outlook has changed. When I ask him “Show me something beautiful today” I’m not just asking him, I’m encouraging myself to look for something more beautiful. Maybe out of that now ember of grief that still burns slightly, that I want to know he’s here in some way. Or it could be out of a desire for myself to see more beautiful things, because the world has seemed pretty monochrome the past 2 months.
It also drives me to think, how much of this is based on gravity? After all, when something goes up it must come down. But when something goes down, it builds momentum. That can make things seem to be falling faster and faster, but everything has a terminal velocity. On Earth, when someone falls, that can accelerate at a rate of 9.80665 meters per second (squared). That’s pretty fucking quick. But imagine that’s just barely grazing a large smooth hill, that flattens out gradually, then rises into another hill. Rolling hills in Sonoma valley style. Maybe luck, karma, whatever you’d like to call it, functions on momentum. Such a negative time, what can feel like a free fall, is building that momentum. Things start to flatten out, which to me feels like that post-mortem grieving period where nothing else bad is necessarily happening, but you’re wrestling with the feelings that follow. One day though, things start improving, and in my case, it feels like each day things are generally improving quickly. Maybe my luck is centered around a hot-wheels style track that carries, builds, and loses momentum. Maybe I’m just improving my outlook, while trying not to be pretentious about it.
A sidenote:
I know many people won’t want to view grief and the peaks and valleys of life as some sort of physics problem, and honestly I don’t blame them. My brain likes to visualize things though, and is a bit averse to understanding abstract concepts. So this is just my way of interpreting it. Sorry to anyone reading this who may have been offended by my writing structure, and if the theme was a bit difficult to follow. It’s been a long time since I wrote anything that wasn’t a business plan or project plan. If you have any suggestions, please send them my way. I’ll only ever be grateful for constructive criticism.