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UNIVERSE WITHIN by Gwen Randall-Young
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did… So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
– Mark Twain
Recently, my daughter jumped out of an airplane. When she had approached me and asked if she could go skydiving for her 21st birthday, my instinctual, protective-mother response was, “no!” If I granted permission and something happened, how would I ever forgive myself?
The adage about giving children wings and letting them fly was suddenly very, very real. When my second daughter was 18, one of her friends had been killed in a car accident, and I was deeply affected by a young life being cut so short. I remembered my vow to let my youngest try anything, and everything, she wanted, so that if she died young, she would have experienced life to the fullest.
Now, she wanted to jump out of an airplane. It did not take me too long to recognize that my child was not afraid to take risks, and I needed to confront my own fears. Deep down, I knew that it would be worse to deny her the right to follow her soul’s urgings, than to let her go, even if it was the last thing she ever did. She is my child, but it is her life.
I had to let her go, both physically and metaphorically. I also needed to support her by sharing her excitement and cheering her on as she honoured her path. I could not, however, be there to watch. She left for the same-day training at six-thirty in the morning, long before I awoke. I had left her a colourful note of love, encouragement, and support, and when I woke up, I noticed it was gone. She had also left me a note saying, “I’ll be thinking of you.”
Throughout the day, she kept in touch by cell phone. As the hour of the jump approached, I wasn’t sure whether I was feeling my own anxiety, or hers. In her phone calls, she described the roller coaster of emotions she felt as she went through the training. She said that she was challenging her own security boundaries; she does not like flying.
I thought about what a neat kid she is. I thought about her eagerness to learn new things, to travel, and to move out of her comfort zone. Most significantly, I realized that she is truly her own person. I felt tremendous pride in both how she has constructed her life, and in her sense of self.
She was the last in her group to jump, and it seemed an eternity until her phone call arrived. She had landed safely. Even more than the exhilaration of the jump, however, I think she was excited about reaching a new level of self-empowerment. She spoke more about the feeling of “I did it!” rather than the experience itself.
The next morning, she explained in detail what it had been like – six of them crouched on the floor of a little plane. She described the strong wind as she ventured out onto the wing, and how she had hung there until she got the go-ahead from the instructor. Describing the descent, she said she had focused more on remembering all the instructions than taking in the view.
All the while, I thought about how each generation is more evolved than the one before. We provide the best role models we can for our children, until, suddenly, one day, we realize that they have become role models for us.
Gwen Randall-Young is an author and psychotherapist in private practice. Additional articles and information about her books and transformational CDs can be found at www.gwen.ca,
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