1.20.18
The Fall
I fell through the ceiling yesterday. It wasn’t the first time.
I like to think that I’m a person who learns from their mistakes, but as I hung in a single leg pike position like an uninspired Tom Daly with one leg sandwiched between my chest and a truss while the other dangled through to the party room below like a forgotten decoration, I thought maybe not. I had been in this same situation before. Though the fall was less elegant, I had been walking through an attic and I had stuck my leg through equally bubblegum pink insulation. This time as I frantically clawed my way out, using one arm, a rafter, and uselessly flailing my free leg like a tentacle, I flushed the insulation pink color that only comes with a major embarrassment. I knew I was an idiot, and even more so an idiot for doing it twice. I knew where I should step to not fall and what the consequences are when I don’t step correctly. I knew I could get hurt and I knew I could cause major damage. For whatever reason, I thought for certain when I stepped this time I was going to land squarely with my foot on the slim, sturdy edge of the truss. I had stepped correctly many time since my first fall—not that I spend a significant part of my time in ceilings—and yet I still fell again.
When I finally, gracefully un-wedged myself from the hole I had created, I slunk out of the attic and headed down stairs to assess the damage in the party room. I saw the kicked-out ceiling panel exploded over the floor, like a snowball that had been flung aimlessly, splattered on bare ground, and dropped into a chair to stew. When I plunked into the chair I realized I’d bruised myself in an undesirable place. This was bad. I sat there letting my sure to be blueberry-esque bruise grow (turns out more like a thousand smashed blueberries), and thought maybe it’s okay that I’d done this before. Like with anything, nothing is the same twice.
In my life, and in my work, I don’t like to screw up and, if I do, I only want to do it once. But I figured that maybe this mistake was not the same as the first. This was a different attic, a different year, a different fall. I had learned from my first fall that falling sucks, but this situation was an entirely different event. No matter how well I think I understand something, each situation is different. I might not know what to do even if I think I should. For the most part, I learn from my mistakes. I tailor how I conduct myself based on previous experiences, but I need to remember that even though it may look like an attic and smells like an attic, it might not be the same attic.
Just because I think I’m going to land squarely doesn’t mean I will. Taking a moment to really think about whether I’m going through the ceiling or stepping solidly is the difference between working blindly and working with intention. While I never want to leave one leg dangling like a forgotten piece of spaghetti through a strainer again, I’ve found that mistakes can be a positive thing and that I do learn from them. Sometimes we just don’t get hurt enough the first time to learn from our missteps.