Falling Down & Getting Back Up

We only have to walk on the road from one mailbox to the other, a short distance.  Buddy the WonderDog runs in the ditch, I walk on the shoulder, then we dash to the safety of my parent’s driveway. I run intervals up the hill of the drive, Buddy pretends to hunt rabbit along the fence line. Good exercise for us both.

Today, jessieDog decides she wants to go too.

Miss jessieDog is a stubborn old gal and I worry that she won’t want to run the ditch. So I take off at a trot, keeping to the shoulder, hoping she will follow suit. My thought: the faster the trip, the less danger.

And then I fell down. Hard. One minute I’m running with confidence, the next minute I’m brushing the gravel from my knees and hands, picking my glasses up off the road and limping back to the house. Stunned, hurt and not a little scared. Trying my best to be brave and not to cry.

“I don’t know why it is we are in such a hurry to get up when we fall down. You might think we would lie there and rest for a while.” -Max Eastman

But the unbidden tears fall anyway while I silently, ruthlessly admonish myself for my own arrogance and stupidity. “What in the world am I doing running? I’m 46 years old! I’ll hurt myself! I’m not strong enough to run! No more exercising. It’s too much! I can’t handle it!”

“The existing phrasebooks are inadequate. They are well enough as far as they go, but when you fall down and skin your leg they don’t tell you what to say.” -Mark Twain

Once inside the house, I stop to take a few deep breaths and roll up my pants legs to access the damage. I’m a little amazed to see that one knee barely bleeding and the other isn’t bleeding at all. I would have thought there would be a least a trickle, if not a torrent, considering the pain I’m in.

I am, however, strangely satisfied to note that while there is an inadequate amount of bleeding, there does seem to be quite a bit of bruising and swelling under way.

You think I’m kidding, don’t you. Come on, be honest with me and with yourself. Isn’t it much more satisfying when pain is at least somewhat visible to others?

“Pain (any pain–emotional, physical, mental) has a message. The information it has about our life can be remarkably specific, but it usually falls into one of two categories: “We would be more alive if we did more of this,” and, “Life would be more lovely if we did less of that.” Once we get the pain’s message, and follow its advice, the pain goes away.” -Peter McWilliams

“The spiritual path is one of falling on your face, getting up, brushing yourself off, turning and looking sheepishly at God and then taking the next step.” -Aurobindo

“Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead.” -Lucille Ball

Okay, so that last quote has nothing to do with falling down, but I love it anyway.

Oh, and just so you know, after I brushed off my hurt pride and mended my shredded ego, I went back out and walked up that hill.   I’m not sure it was the SMART thing to do, but I felt brave doing it.

Grace to you and Peace.

~ by Kimberly Mason on August 30, 2008.