Collision

That crazy lil' thing called change. Yeah I've spoken about it here before (read here: Change). Maybe now you are getting more of an idea of what kinda stuff rocks up on this page of mine. The thing is, change is in every place, person and thing, they all determine our lives. They are all moments of impact, some so intense and clear to us, others are subdued and subtle and take time to realise and seep through to us, others may go unnoticed to our eye. They cross our path every day, sometimes they stop us in our tracks, sometimes you just keep walking. They all define who we are, in to the mix of our lives they go.

Sometimes change can be uncomfortable, we can build up walls to it before we realise. Sometimes it's more than just uncomfort, it's pain. And then again it really may not be anything to do with that; it may seem like it is but maybe it is no more than us anticipating fear.

But fear of what exactly? Of the clear and intense change or of the impact, of the actual collision?

Playing hockey I have taken some serious knocks over the years. There are a couple of them, that if I close my eyes and think back and home in on the actual moment of impact, I can still feel it happen. I still remember the pain. But in those moments, if I think about it more, it is not so much that pain. It is temporary, and you know it while you are clutching your knee or ankle or whatever part of your body, that you just need to let it pass. That intense explosion will subside; bite down on my gumshield, buckle down the shutters, the storm will pass.

The fear is what you are left with. That moment of uncertainty.

Once I got hit with a stick in the eye/cheek bone. It was so hard that my gum shield came out. I remember clutching my face and yelling out. But it was the ten seconds after the pain subsided when I couldn't see out of my eye - just a fuzzy blackness like a lost television transmission - that brought the fear. Ten seconds that seemed like hours. Uncertain painful moments. Had I lost my eye? Was I blind? Did it just seem worse than it was because of how that tough, sonovabitch human head reacts to impact? A whack on the knee leaves just a lump and a bruise or a smashed kneecap? I got away with a jet black, swelled eye that was closed over for at least a week.

But a week later, as the bruise started to fade to a yellow-purple and the swelling seized to obstruct my view, I was playing again. The collision forgotten, I was in the thick of it once more. It is like that every time. Maybe that is what child birth is like for a woman, after all, they are prepared to go through it more than once, I can only imagine. We human beings are gluttons for punishment. We need pain and we need risk. We don't want them, but we do need them. They define us. Write it as a bulletpoint under the heading of 'C'est la vie'.

There are of course those moments that slap us in the face, wake us but make us smile and shine a light. Collisions are not all bad. Whether launched or eased in to them, the impact is the smile. It can bring unexpected moments that flow freely and joyfully through us, that take hold of us as we let them tingle and guide us in to the future. The future is uncertain, and we need something to guide us through it. We can prepare for some things, for the rest there is instinct. It is decided within us as we collide.