The Fall

I leaned over the wooden platform on shaky legs and peered over the edge of the 170 foot waterfall. Adrenaline and excitement made my heart pound in my head. The guide waved up at me from the rocks below, but he was just a tiny spec, an ant, a blur through the spray and mist. I took a deep breath and began my long descent towards him with one giant backwards leap.

The thing I love best about rappelling has nothing to do with the tight harness, the nifty knots, or the gear. It has nothing to do with a series of gorgeous waterfalls or the vibrant jungle zooming past. And oddly enough, it has little to do with the adrenaline The thing I love best about rappelling is that you have to let go in order to move forward.

If I hold the rope tightly to my right side, I am stalled, dangling 169 feet up, at birds eye level. In order to go down, I have to let loose with my grip so that the rope can burn past my palm and through my caribeaner device to slide me down.

To start the game, I have to bend my knees and push off the platform, take a leap of trust and literally let go to fall out into thin air and falling water. Thirty feet down, my shoes hit the wet rock wall and I struggled to find traction so that I could leap out again in order to fall away from the rock face and not scrape down on it. I suppose this is controlled falling. As controlled as a tiny river canyon buried in the rain forest jungle can be. I laughed out loud as the waterfall thundered on my helmet and shoulders. Several leaps later, my feet finally landed on terra firma, and I stood on wobbly legs and watched the others follow suit. The more they clenched the rope and clung, the more stuck they became, the less they allowed themselves to more forward.

When they were so tightly attached, their fear multiplied and escalated almost instantly. That 170 feet of space in between two solid locations could be terrifying, or it could be the most fun part of the experience depending on how playful the rappelers were and how much they allowed themselves to let go. One woman gripped too tightly and became paralyzed one third of the way down. She fought and screamed and hyperventilated and dramatized. I guess that is an option. Not everyone can embrace the sensation and keep moving forward. One thing's for certain however, if you leap, you have got to be ready, you have got to have trust, and you've got to let go.

That leap of faith is a rush, for certain. It is the epitome of going for it, just doing it, and making things happen. We all have points in our lives where we are standing on that platform, looking far out into the abyss at what we want, where we want to go. In order to get to what we want, we have to leave what we no longer want. This platform can be many things: a lifestyle, a location, a relationship, a habit, or even a career.

There was no way to choose a route to fall over the waterfall. I couldn't plan where my feet would land on the wet rock, nor how many leaps would take me to the pool below. I just had to believe I could do this, trust that the "how" would work itself out and know that if I would let go and leap I could get there.

When I think back in my life to all the leaps I have made, it has always worked out in the end. Sometimes the space between, the unknown, the fall, has been longer than 170 feet, but I have always been okay.

Hours of jumping and leaping and falling and woo-hooing later, I was more comfortable with letting go of the rope and going with the flow. I started to play with how far I could jump out off the platforms, how long I could stand on the vertical rock wall in the middle of each waterfall and admire the view from the cliff face while I was there. The last waterfall was 90 feet and I was wishing there were 5 more falls below it. Being comfortable to play with the unknown, I hooked into the rope, turned around backwards and without hesitation leapt into space, knowing it was not only going to be okay, it was going to be fantastic fun!