Tag: Niagara Falls

Shout Out to Relief

There’s no denying that when bad things don’t come to pass – as you feared they might – relief floods in with a welcome physical response.

The shoulders drop. The breaths get deeper again. The nerves – if you are prone to them – begin to quell. I tend to tears sometimes. Pent-up emotion seeking an outlet.

So if you have been following me at all in the past few days, you’ll know I just faced what was in my life a barrel drop over Niagara Falls. With me in it, if that isn’t belaboring the obvious.

How many of these periods of terror and relief have I gone through? Seems like thousands but was probably only a few hundred or so.

The exam you are sure you weren’t well enough prepared for. The first date with someone that you really, really like. Sitting in the doctor’s office fearing the worse but hoping (praying) for the best. The interview for that job that you really want.

I am reminded of Sally Field’s Best Actress Oscar win for Norma Rae. In what was possibly the most public display ever of insecurity and vulnerability, she spouted out to the august assembled audience from the podium, Oscar in hand: “You like me. You really, really like me.”

Full confession. I know the feeling.

So today when an important meeting determining many of my future choices went very well today, I was tempted to blurt out those very words to the interviewer.

But given the stakes and a certain sense of decorum I am able to deploy – if and when necessary – I did not do that. I shook hands, walked out, and did the secret Laura Linney happy dance from Love, Actually in my mind when Linney actually manages to get Hugh Grant home.

I mean, I am not quite foolish enough to ACTUALLY get into a barrel and – as it were – barrel over Niagara Falls.

I like myself way too much for that. And for what I was able to pull off today, I like myself even better.

Big Leap

Today I am going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Okay. It just feels that way. Going to a meeting that will change my life. I am an emotional creature. Prone to mild, if controlled, hysteria, under pressure. Mostly I grin a lot when I’m stressed. Me and Adrenaline are old, long-term buddies.

Me and Adrenaline have an implicit, if unspoken, agreement. You keep me moving forward, I tell it, and I will do my level-headed best not to screw things up. I will not do anything to sink this ship we call a body or beach it on some desert island without water, shelter, or hope. Deal?

I grant you there is some hyperbole in my metaphor. But not a lot. I have another object lesson I am living through about managing stress and keeping cool. I have little control over the outcome and that makes me a little nuts.

My husband is a former commercial airline pilot. He is the very definition of cool. Nothing rattles him. Not even me. I guess when you are at the helm of a 747 with 300 souls in the back of your bus trusting you with their lives, you learn to chill. I can imagine no scarier image than an airline pilot with a bad case of nerves. It is their job to keep us calm. Not the other way around.

So it probably won’t be as bad as I imagine. It might, in fact, even be quite civilized. The chicken little types out there in the world make a fortune out of capitalizing on our fear of almost everything. Body odor, as an example.

The profit numbers around products and packages that are designed to keep us “safe” are staggering. The insurance industry is a multi-billion dollar behemoth. Fear is an inherent and instinctual survival tool. In moderation. But here we are.

I wonder what our Neanderthal ancestors would make of us now. I imagine they would long to go running back to their caves and dirt floors rather than face the daunting maze that society has become.

For my part, I’d rather be making preparations for the slaughter of a good-old fashioned sabertooth tiger than trying to navigate modern bureaucracy. Sharpen the spears and the flint arrowheads. Make sure the loincloths are well-secured. Wrap your feet in enough banana leaves to safely stalk the elusive tiger through an ancient jungle. It was so much simpler then.