Learning to Fall

Last February, I broke my foot from falling improperly while indoor climbing. It was traumatic because it was early in my climbing experience and because it was the first time I’d ever broken a bone. It took me four months to completely heal, and shortly after recovery, I began to slowly work out again. But it took me another several months to feel comfortable going on even a moderate hike, and it was incredibly mentally challenging because my mind would not imagining all the different ways I could break my foot again. I still find myself gripping onto that mentality with most things I do. I fear deeply not just the falling and breaking my foot, but the dread of time passing me by as I sit and wait to heal, because the four months were really only supposed to be four to six weeks.

The night I fell, I promised myself that I would go back to climb, that I wouldn’t let the incident stop me. Throughout recovery and after, I wasn’t so sure anymore because of how much it sucked—for lack of a better phrase—and I couldn’t stand the idea of breaking another bone and waiting to heal again. Every time I drove by the climbing gym, which is down the street from where I live, I felt a pang of regret, anger, or sadness; every time someone talked about climbing, I got goosebumps. But I couldn’t break my promise to myself.

Two weeks ago, I went climbing again and practiced falling properly. I took the baby-est of baby steps. I let myself fall (in a much different way than that first time) and was surprised at how painless it can be to fall properly. And of course felt some regret in not having paid attention to this step when I started last year. Throughout the two-hour session, I tried various routes and my chest tightened and eyes teared up only once in the beginning due to flashbacks and anxiety. As I continued, I realized that I never learned how to fall properly—not only in climbing, but in everything.

Last weekend, I went snowshoeing for the first time and it was unsurprisingly challenging, both physically and mentally. I broke a sweat within two minutes because we were going uphill and because I couldn’t help but, once again, imagine all the different ways I could break my foot again. While trekking uphill was difficult and I found myself cursing much more during this than any other physical activity I’ve done, trekking downhill was even worse. Going down was how that incident occurred the first time—it was what broke me, literally. At one point, one of the people in the group noticed my struggle and told me to just relax, reminding me that it’s okay to slip and unlikely but also okay to fall.

So I started reflecting on this again—that I need to learn to fall and be okay with falling. I half-jokingly said to my friend that I blame my parents. They were incredibly overprotective of me because they are parents and because I have diabetes—every ounce of overprotection they already had prior to my diagnosis was magnified a thousand times post-diagnosis because they didn’t want anything else to happen to me. They constantly warned me against running or jumping or playing because I might fall and hurt myself. Meanwhile, my sister and cousins and friends all played just as kids would—boldly, fearlessly, lightheartedly. I was the kid who sat out of games because my parents told me to, and eventually because I was too afraid to. I didn’t want anything to happen to me, either, despite knowing that nothing happened to my sister or cousins or friends for running and jumping and playing.

So I grew up believing that falling was bad and endeavored constantly to not fall. It’s simply counterintuitive—why would I let myself get hurt? (My mind wants to go into a metaphorical conversation with falling [in love] but I will save this for another time.) But learning to fall in climbing was liberating; had I learned to do so first, I wouldn’t have broken my foot. Letting myself slip in snowshoeing was liberating; had I just relaxed, I wouldn’t have staggered downhill and stressed my knees while everyone else zipped by me.

While returning to climbing and trying out snowshoeing were both stretches for me, my real stretch for the next several months will be learning to fall and being comfortable with it, because it is okay to slip and fall every once in a while.