Fear of falling

"For the first time in several years I feel safe."
 
Safe. It wasn't a word he would have thought to use, but it was the word that came forward when called on to explain how he felt. He wasn't in a dark mood, more of a dimly lit one, but the word brought an intellectual smirk, not of satisfaction, but of self indulgent irony. He knew that for so long, as far back as he could remember, he had been on a razor's edge. He had been cut badly, not once, but several times, and not wanting to be cut again brought a deep seated fear to rest near his soul, casting the gloom that gave his mood that dim sheen that cast that fear across everything he saw, everything he experienced. He had been constantly afraid. Until this morning.
 
Nothing in particular had happened to release him. He just simply realized as he drove in that morning that he was changed. He wasn't sure if he had fatigued his neurosis to the point of just not caring anymore, or if he had somehow managed to finally fall into a place where no one could get him, figuratively speaking. Truth be known, he was skeptical of this new feeling, or absence of feeling. Would a word, a call, a meeting, shatter this peace? It was telling that he wasn't listening for the other shoe to drop anymore. It was true he had tired of the constant fear, worrying, preparing for the different vignettes on how this or that fear would play out. Maybe he was just tired? Falling now would be no less painful, tragic and wrought with complications for responsibilities that would go unmet, pride lost, and lives changed. It was just no longer something he feared. Maybe that's what was different. It wasn't that he was no longer afraid of falling again, but that he had been treading water in so many waterfalls it no longer frightened him to wakefulness that he would likely go over. He was no longer afraid of falling. But then, as painful as falling was emotionally, the more he thought about it, it was not being able to rebuild after the fall that truly haunted him. The fall was just the signal that he would have to supplicate himself and start at the beginning again. The fall lead to the need to rebuild, and at some point rebuilding would no longer be possible. That was the monster under his bed.
 
And now that monster no longer mattered. It was what it was. He realized that had been his nemesis, that he might not be able to get back up next time, so he feared the next fall, and he saw it coming from everywhere. (Of course he did, after all it always snuck up on him because they lacked courage and leapt out from their hiding places without warning). But now, awake and aware, it seemed something he would be able to deal with because he no longer had expectations it would be the same afterwards. Now that he no longer cared if he could get back up, he felt safe. That's just odd. Knock me down. Fine. I'll just lay here for a while and see what happens rather than live in constant fear of what may happen. This notion gave him freedom, peace. And with that he felt safe.
 
He wondered how long this would last.

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