“The angel seeing us is watching through each other’s eyes.” – Rickie Lee Jones

My friend Eric was over the other night and my daughter accidentally did one of those “trust falls” when she tripped over something, fell backwards and he caught her. She thought that was so much fun that she wanted to do it again and again.

Watching this, I was trying to think who I trust to catch me. As I started listing all the wonderful people in my life in my head and thinking whether I’d trust them to catch me if I metaphorically fell (like if I got sick), I started automatically providing excuses why I wouldn’t ask. Like there’s Lindsey but she is so busy, there’s Eric but he just started a new job, there’s Katie but she’s a half hour away, and there’s my mom but she should be enjoying her senior years.

I had to meditate on this for a while. Why is it that I don’t “trust” any of the people that I really and truly trust? And the answer is my own fear of vulnerability. I don’t want to ask. I fear having to ever own that there are some days I’m a hot mess on the inside.

Of course this is all thankfully hypothetical but also represents my ongoing battle with over-preparing for life. It’s not just now. I can think back to when I climbed mountains and I would check the packing list over and over so that I wouldn’t have to ask anyone to borrow anything. Or sleep with my contacts in so I wouldn’t be late to tie into the rope team when we’d leave for our final summit bid in the middle of the night.

When I really dig deep, I see that I trust my spiritual guides like my dad and God much more than I do living people. Because I don’t have to ask out loud!

When it comes to trust falls, I think it is far easier to be the person catching than the person falling. Unless you are a 6-year-old and then you love doing the falling. But if I remember correctly from the group building exercises I’ve done in the past, you have to both do the falling and the catching.

A good reminder that we have to practice vulnerability. So I’ll go first. I started blogging regularly because working remotely and being a parent means that I don’t have enough conversations with adults that go deep. That leaves me feeling this weird kind of loneliness that isn’t bored or even unhappy but just scared I’m missing the point.  So I write but I don’t advertise this to anyone outside the blogging community just in case I’m overreaching. But I aspire to one day own all of me and to know the power of doing so.

Whoa! That was scary. But I’ll catch you if you want to take a turn!