I see the space station passing over, and I wave, and think about all the silent machines above me. Orbit is a controlled fall – I remember that. An endless downwards hurtle, but with just enough forward momentum to keep from hitting the ground. Freefall. I think about satellites, and how this barely controlled freefall is the only way that they can fulfill their purpose. I think some people are like satellites: we also live out our lives in freefall.
Satellite people, that’s us. We’re the ones who always say the wrong thing to the wrong person, or the right person at the wrong time. We didn’t get the Rulebook for Human Interaction that the others got given at birth, or soon after. Or if we did, we never read it – discipline was never our strong point.
People in freefall Get It Wrong, often. We’re good at self-justification, and we tell ourselves that she doesn’t really love him, that our unhappy childhoods are to blame, that our badness makes us interesting. We never got the hang of sensible, grown-up love - our bodies shake, our souls twist and burn inside our limbs, and we open our big mouths, and the only thing we can keep down is Jim Beam and dry toast, because we don’t know if it’s all going to be OK, now we’ve spoken. In all probability, we’re never going to know.
We live our whole lives in freefall, people like us, but with just enough forward momentum to keep us alive. And we are alive – ****** and embarrassed and scared, but alive. It’s when we feel nothing, that’s when people like us hit the ground.
