It’s a brave person who steps off into the unknown, knowing that there’s no going back and no safety net to catch you if you fall. Such was the case with astronaut Ed White. He was the first American to step out of a spacecraft and go for a walk in the vast emptiness of space. It almost killed him, largely because no one knew what it would be like, so there was no way to train for the mission itself, except to make a lot of best guesses.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, as they say. Ed White survived that first step, and I think we can all agree, it was a doozy.
Life often requires us to make these leaps of faith. While it’s easy to say things like “God has a plan” or “where God closes a door he opens a window,” it’s a lot harder to make that leap when you don’t know really where it leads to. Sure, it’s easy to put it in God’s hands, but as anyone who has taken a real leap of faith knows, we have to rely on ourselves to survive it.
I have certainly made my share of leaps over the years. Some of them were terribly ill-informed. Leaving my marriages like I did, doing the equivalent of making the other person make the choice for me, was a chicken’s way out. Still, it was a leap of faith. There was no secret plan in place. I left, not knowing where I would sleep that night, where I would live, what I would do or what would come next. I simply stepped out into the abyss.
In the working world, I’ve only done this just once. It was my first real job. I knew my days there were numbered, so I resigned in the process of being fired, with no job prospects lined up. I simply stepped off into the abyss. Famously, I ended up in the Bay Area, living with a woman I had met in the Caribbean six months earlier, set on making a new life in California.
That lasted 30 days. By the time two weeks had passed, I had slipped into a depression, living in an ugly bathroom robe, rarely leaving the apartment. Then, one day, I knew it was time to come home.
It was the same story in Florida. I was living a lie there too. I didn’t belong there. I famously took an almost identical leap of faith and ran off to Florida with a girl I had met in Key West just months before. What is it with meeting girls from the South in the tropics that makes me lose my mind. The result was the same. One day, I knew it was time to come home.
That leap of faith was a costly one in more ways that one. It’s not cheap moving your stuff 3,000 miles across the country. It was an expensive lesson, this particular leap of faith.
But it did lead me directly to where I am today, settled into a nice house with a lovely wife and a great life. I can’t picture it being any better, except perhaps winning a little lottery money to pad the old retirement account.
I am finally through leaping by the way, which is a very good thing. Now that I am rock solid, my darling wife can take a leap of faith again. She certainly did that three years ago when she asked me to marry her. This three and out guy who didn’t seem like a very safe bet in the love and marriage department. But she took that leap anyway.
I think I can say that she doesn’t regret it. In fact, it’s what led her to her latest leap of faith.
In January, she left her job. After 12 years of unbridled loyalty, often through impossible working conditions, she just couldn’t take it anymore. Nothing she did seemed good enough for her bosses and the boom got lowered on her for things she didn’t even do, and worse, wasn’t even responsible for. Add in a couple of crazy, control-freak bosses, and you can imagine what it must have been like for her. Her own view of herself was shaken to its core.
I was wholeheartedly in favor of this particular leap of faith. Yes, it’s squeezing the family finances some, but sometimes you just need to step off the precipice and believe you will land on your feet. Of course, it helps that she’s a Kat.
I certainly know others in my life who have done the same. I always applaud their courage as it’s one of the toughest things to do. Everyone ideally wants a plan, or at least a backup plan if the first one doesn’t work out. I mean, it’s far easier to leave a job when you have a new one. The same could be said of a relationship, I suppose.
But stepping out on your own? Damned courageous.
Looking back, I have no regrets about my many leaps of faith. Some did turn out better than others. And while not all of them made me stronger, none managed to kill me. Like a cat with nine lives, I somehow made it through relatively intact.
It’s hard to leave what’s familiar, even if it’s far from ideal. But it’s far worse knowing that the familiar is actually a nightmare in disguise, that it is slowly killing you from the inside out. It can be a marriage, a friendship, a job – what have you. Regardless, it is simply not worth it to let what little precious time we have here on earth be wasted in a place that makes you feel like you’re a piece of sh**.
Whenever you face such a moment, remember your friend Robb, that guy who has lept time and time again and somehow made it to a better place. And if there’s no one else there to catch you, I will. Just let me know you’re about to leap first.
In the Emerald City, wary of those 12 Lords a Leaping,
- Robb