Falling

I cannot hope to convey what this experience was like, how exciting it was, how terrifying: a feeling so sudden that it seemed an eternity. Falling, what the girl dreams of, what the woman knows too well, is itself the essence of human existence. In every instance, there is the moment when the faller realizes that she cannot help herself; she has been taken over by a relentless mechanism and must continue with it to the end and be subject to the consequences. ‘There is nothing more I can do.’ How long, how infinitely expandable, a second is when it contains this thought. To fall so utterly and completely: how often I had imagined this as a girl, full of hopes and expectations. Hands, feet, muscles, all familiar protective mechanisms of the body are suddenly useless. You are completely at the mercy of another. Your life is in their hands.
It was as if each part of the body experienced its own separate ecstasy. My back and waist felt the strong, warm imprint of the hands which with great tenderness embraced me. My hands reached out around his neck and pulled him closer, so I could feel his warm breath on my neck. My feet, although still touching the floor, felt as thought they were floating on air. In that same moment, I understood the true magnitude of the emotions that were engulfing me, realizing in that instant how fragile and helpless I had become. I saw the rest of my life stretching out before me, the crossroads that I would reach, the challenges that I would face, and realized that it all contained him. That, at the crossroads and through the challenges, he was always by my side and I made the instinctive movement forwards, burying myself deeper in his comforting and familiar body. I thought, ‘This is it. This is the end.’ But I didn’t fight it. I allowed myself to continue falling; pressing against the man I loved, knowing that I would keep falling forever.