Tonight, while frolicking (because that is the only word to use) after our picnic, Jake was teaching me how to long board. Soon, I could control where I was going, and flip the board up. In order to challenge me he placed me on the top of the hill and told me to trust myself.
Towards the top going down, it felt, what I can imagine only flying feels like. The wind rushing past, the ground floating below. I just kept going, shooting under street lights, and past the dry Utah trees. I focused on the bottom of the hill, the spot where the ground was level. As I kept going faster and faster, it occurred to me that I should be scared. Soon as I saw the board beneath my feet edging more to the grass, and less around the curve and my whole body froze. Suddenly all I could see was how hurt I could get once the board flipped up into the grass. And instead of leaning away from the grass, I jumped ship. I jumped and ran alongside the empty board until I came to a safe stop. My heart was pounding, and I let out a groan of frustration. Every time down the hill I would tell myself it would be different, and every time I got slightly closer to the "bottom" but without fail I would get scared and jump off the board. I wish that I had simply trusted myself enough to let myself face whatever the bottom held. I feel like even if I had crashed and was covered with bruises- it would have been more fulfilling in the end then never knowing what it felt like to reach the destination. But every time I pushed myself, just a little further- I celebrated that victory. Maybe that's what life is- slowly edging ourselves to that bottom. The bottom where we either crash and get injured, but live to know we did all that we could, or where we get all the rewards of taking the risk.
My favorite quote
"The more things change, the more they stay the same, I'm not sure who was the first person was who said that, probably Shakespeare or maybe Sting, but at the moment that sentence that best explains my tragic flaw my inability to change. I don't think I'm wrong in this, the more I get to know other people, the more I realize it's kind of everyone's flaw. Staying exactly the same for as long as possible standing perfectly still, it feels better somehow, and if you are suffering, at least the pain is familiar, because if you took that leap of faith, went outside the box, did something unexpected, who knows what other pain might be waiting out there, chances are could be even worse. So you maintain the stasis quo, choose the road already traveled, and it doesn't seem that bad, not as far as flaws go, your not a drug addict, not killing anyone, except maybe yourself, a little. When we finally do change, I don't think it happens like an earthquake, or an explosion, or all of a sudden you're like this different person. I think it's smaller than that, the kind of thing most people wouldn't even notice unless they look really really close. Which thank god they never do, but you notice it, inside you that change feels like a world of difference and you hope that it is, and that this is a person that you get to be forever, that you'll never have to change again."- Everwood
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