“Paigey, Honey, when you fall, just let go and tumble into the fall,” Dad Pat, my biological father, used to tell me when he coached me in my spirited little league soccer career. “You need to be more aggressive,” he’d tell me, “and don’t be so afraid to fall.The more you tense up, the more it will hurt when you fall,” he’d warn. My little league soccer career l...

“Paigey, Honey, when you fall, just let go and tumble into the fall,” Dad Pat, my biological father, used to tell me when he coached me in my spirited little league soccer career. “You need to be more aggressive,” he’d tell me, “and don’t be so afraid to fall.The more you tense up, the more it will hurt when you fall,” he’d warn.

My little league soccer career lasted a good, solid five seasons with such fierce team names as the “Gumdrops,” “Geckos” and “High Life”…Yes, our coaches played the Peter Gabriel song by the same title at each of our practices. In our pink jerseys, grey shorts and pink and grey ribbons, we were intimidating. As a seven, eight, nine, etc. year-old, that advice from Dad Pat made sense in theory, but in practice, it was another matter.

“But, Dad, I know it’s going to hurt!,” I’d exclaim.

This duality did not reconcile in my brain – be more aggressive, thus make myself much more likely to fall or collide with a fellow Gumdrop or a rival on the Rotten Bananas team, but at the same time, don’t worry about getting hurt. This made no sense at all.

“Yes, but tensing up makes it hurt much worse,” he would counter. “If you relax, you fall into it and it hurts less.” And then he would continue his explanation with some precise reference to his Air Force days, complete with demonstrative hand gestures…”When we had to do some parachute training, and I did about 70 jumps, we’d jump out of that plane going 200 miles an hour and you have to jump out of that plane.”

This is where my eyes would widen to max capacity from engrossing myself in the visuals his hand motions created and I’d start looking off into space.  “No two ways about it,” he said definitively. "Then you’re free-falling until you achieve terminal velocity, falling at about 120 feet per second, and that’s when you pull your ripcord," he stated. "Sure, you’d have a parachute attached, but when you land, you need to have legs like springs.”

“Oooh,” I’d reply emptily.

“When you land, if you’re tense, you’re going to break a leg…or worse!”

Ouch. Tune back in.

“You need to be loose like spaghetti,” he would say with an affirmative nod. Then he would sit back judiciously, waiting for confirmation that we understood.

“Spaghetti?,” I’d giggle, imagining noodles and marinara.

“Pasghetti?,” Pat, Jr. would inquire.

We got it. We understood. In theory.

But thinking about noodles was much funnier than wrapping my mind around setting myself up to get hurt. And around not holding onto breath, posture, a fellow Gumdrop, anything and anyone to prevent the fall.Now, as adults, how many of us still have trouble with that notion? Probably many of us. So, what do we do? We can slacken completely and fall into every relationship or commitment, but most people we know who do that have nothing to lose. That, or they’re somewhat reckless. Or they were never really that vested to begin with.

We can tense up and hold that wince in our mind and physicality as we await the imminent moment when we can hear our heart break - which is often a split second before that heartbreak floods forth from our eyes. It hurts no less, but at least we knew it was coming. We were not surprised. Or we can do ourselves a favor and end it before we have to. In this evolved mindset, we call “game over” and move on before anyone gets any more hurt. Even if ”it,” whatever kind of relationship it might be, is still somewhat viable. Somewhat salvageable. We’re doing everyone a favor, right?

Ten years ago, I dated a man who taught me “All people really want is to love and to be loved.”

To embrace and to be embraced, understood, appreciated, adored – all of the aforementioned reciprocally. That sounds idealistic, but each of us came into this world intuitively understanding perfect love just like that. We were warm, soft creatures who hadn’t any idea about need, generosity or conditionality. We hadn’t any understanding about how precious and fragile we were, and how much we stood to lose if we put ourselves in danger. We hadn’t any sense of self for that matter – or any need for one.

We hadn’t any need for faith in our own judgment. All we needed to know about anyone was self-evident; if someone was kind, loving, nurturing and even-tempered, we could love them and laugh with them. We could trust them enough to fall asleep in their arms. We did not know if they would steal the ball, run roughshod over our defenses or commit any penalties. We did not know about being aggressive, but not tensing up when we fall, because we were blessed not to know how it feels to get hurt. We were nonverbal, cute little blobs. Intuition was all we had to guide us.

As a teen, during our first couple of heartbreaks, our parents comforted us by saying things like, “If only he could see how beautiful you are to us, he never would have done xyz.” Sometimes, the finale to that talk was the sheerly gratuitous give-away, “Baby, we can’t wait until the day when the man who really appreciates you discovers you.” As if we were a hidden treasure.

In college and the first few years after, we listened to our girlfriends who “never really liked him anyway.” Even though their boyfriends were his best friends, they may have had a dalliance with or a crush on him at one point - and they all hung out all the time. Even if the breakup was partially our fault. But now that we are older, we are stronger, because we know not everyone is well-intentioned, right? Not evil, but not necessarily altruistic.

We are stronger, because when we fall, we expect to it could hurt and we prepare ourselves for that. We are stronger, because we persist in putting ourselves out there, hoping that someday- eventually - the right guy and we will fall for each other. That it will work and that it won’t hurt quite as much. Not in a relationshipius terminus way.

But that raises the question – how completely are we willing to let go in order to fall? Do we tumble into love recklessly or carelessly? Or with total disregard as to how much we could be hurting the man in question if we are not really that vested? Do we let ourselves fall, but always hold that tension somewhere inside, grimacing as our heart shatters but watching it as if in slow-motion, as if it were the determinant play in the televised highlight reel of the championship soccer match? Or do we just go ahead and ruin the relationship so neither person has to endure that medicinal bloodletting and compromise to make something work when we are somehow convinced it never will?

Where do you fall on this spectrum? Are you happy with it?

Being unhappy with the way we approach love does not mean we are unhappy being single. Not at all. It would be a shame for any of us to waste this impeccable, boundless time in our lives craving the “legitimacy” that comes with being married. But it would also be a shame for us to hide here in our happy singleness, to not go after the ball - to not take a chance on loving someone - with full gusto awareness and conviction, just because we are afraid of falling.