Why do we fall?

This line comes from a Batman movie, surprise surprise. Batman Begins to be exact. The entire line is, “Why do we sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.” The exchange is touchihng and continues with Bruce asking if Alfred has given up on him, which Alfred responds with, “Never!”

Going through a variety of things in the past couple of years – depression, addiction, separation, and on the horizon, divorce. All things that have broken me in one way or another to the point where I thought the world would be a better place without me. What brought me back, what made me want to pick myself up? I am still working on that with various people, but largely things like self love, self acceptance that I am responsible for not the things that happen, but how I react (I will get to that thought shortly), love of the people around me and finally letting go of the losses that really broke me.

Roughly about 11 years ago my father passed away. The universe had spoken to me in a way I never knew it would. I had made plans to go and see my father, the plan was that I fly in from my home in New England and surprise him with my brother and take him to a football game. Something me and brother deciding we needed to do more of – spend time with our dad. No one knew I was coming outside of my brother. I received a call from a sibling asking how I was doing and if I had plans, that it might be a good idea to come visit the family, specifically my parents. I asked why and found out that my father was taken to the hospital and that he was in rough shape. I told the sibling I was already coming the next morning and would see them soon. Three days later my father had gone. The universe held him for me to get to see him and say goodbye one last time. But there are a lot of things I never got to tell him. That I was proud of him, proud to be his son, that I loved him with all my heart – we didn’t have the best relationship growing up and grew apart physically and emotionally for a while. I wanted to thank him for all the things he taught me, the knowledge of being a homeowner, a father, a husband, a worker, a person. His death sent me into a severe depression, there was now a hole in me that could never be filled, a list of regrets that would never be managed. It was not until much later, with the help of a great therapist, that I learned to realize that I can still ask for forgiveness and let him go.

Back to this thought of responsiblity for our actions. And I am owning everything I did during my depression. Spending money, retreating from friends and family. But some things happened to me as well that I cannot be responsible for and only be resonsible for what I did. And for a long time I was not even taking responsiblity for my actions or making very good choices.

With all that has happened, I have come to realize what it means to be a friend – open and honest, love and attention, sincerity and vulnerability. And when you do open yourself and stop hiding behind your walls you figure out who your friends really are. I have a small group of friends that I would call true friends. Smaller in number than I have fingers on my hands. I was going to go on about the friends that have abandoned me, friends I have been friends with for over 20+ years. Friends where our kids grew up together, welcomed into their home as they were welcomed into mine. But I can no longer let them or their actions take hold of me. I need to be responsible for what I do going forward, just as they do.

As Alfred said, I am picking myself back up. I am working on me, what I am responsible for and how I react to things that happen to me. Doing the next right thing. I will stumble and I will fall. But I am going to continue picking myself back up.