I think falling in love is always a surprise.
Drop, cover, and hold on. Federal, state, and all other public and private emergency preparedness organizations all agree that is the best way to reduce injury and death during an earthquake. They are probably right. That’s what we taught the kids during earthquake drills when I was working as a teaching aid at DaVinci Academy. One sunny October morning I stood off to the side of a classroom while the teacher explained to the students exactly how to drop, cover, and hold, in the unlikely event of a major earthquake taking place along the Wasatch Front. I spent most of the lecture twisting a lock of hair around my finger wondering why I was being taught how to survive an earthquake by someone who had never experienced one herself. Having been born in California and experienced several major earthquakes, I believed I should be automatically excused from earthquake survival training. The powers that be disagreed.
“So… like… Miss Katie,” a student asked me at the end of the lecture. A typical sixteen year old. The words were out of her mouth a full minute before she raised her hand. “How will we know when an earthquake is happening. Will there be an alarm or something?”
“Oh honey. If you are ever in an earthquake you will know it. No alarm needed.”
When you are in an earthquake, you know it. You can feel the difference. Those who have never felt the earth rumbling from deep within its core may mistake the vibrations of a rattling freight train for something grander during a fleeting moment in the stillness of the night. Only for a moment. They have never felt the sound of the earth shifting, travel through them and fill the air with silence but they still know, after a moment, that was not it. That was not the world around them making itself new.
Isn’t it the same with love?
The poet Sarah Kay describes falling in love as finding the ocean after years of puddle jumping. There are some great deep lakes that stretch for miles but when you find the ocean and feel its salt breeze brush your cheeks you know the difference. You know it by the way the waves crash and sweep back. You know it by the smell and taste of the air around you. It is instantly different than the lakes and rivers you once learned to swim in.
Just like with earthquakes and oceans, you know love when you have found it, even if you stumbled across it on accident. The question we should be typing into Google is not “how to know if you are in love” but “how to avoid falling in love.” A truly impossible task. Any Californian will tell you, you cannot avoid an earthquake. That kind of natural disaster strikes without warning and there is no way to stop it, no matter what made-for-tv Sci Fi movies tell you. There are only ways to minimize the damage should you find yourself in an impossible position, while the world you have carefully built is shifting around you.
We should start by addressing some of the falsehoods that have been spread:
Do not stand in a doorway.
Apparently, the doorway actually is not the strongest part of your house. I was just as shocked to learn this as I’m sure you are. All of these years, movies like Volcano and 10.5 in which people seek refuge in a doorway have been lying to me.
You cannot stand in the doorway. You have to make a decision, in or out. No one gets to hang out on the threshold forever. It is a transition, not a place to take refuge in a moment of danger. Falling in love is definitely a moment of danger. The world you knew is changing, rearranging itself. Just because you fall in love with someone does not mean they are going to fall in love with you or that your timing is going to be perfect, so it seems safe to wait in the transition until you are certain, but it is not safe. You have to choose to pursue those feelings or walk away. As strong as it seems to stand in that initial crush, it will not save you. When that earthquake reduces the world around you to rubble, which sounds bad but can be good, you will be crushed beneath it.
2) Do not run.
This sounds counterintuitive. Earthquakes are unpredictable and you want to get to safety as quickly as possible, but you should never run during an earthquake. It turns out that when the earth starts rumbling at its center, the ground moves under your feet. I have been known to trip on nothing and fall when the world was still and quiet.
The thing is, even if you are certain that this is it, the big one you have been waiting for, your pace still matters. If you rush into it, if you run, you are going to fall and get hurt. Don’t try to rush things. If this really is it, you have your whole life ahead of you. You don’t have to lock it down right this second.
3) The triangle of life does not work.
The idea behind the triangle of life is that when roof of the building collapses, the objects in the room, furniture and things like that, create makeshift roof beams and triangular pockets, known as the triangle of life, that will save you. If I stand in the corner of the room next to a tall piece of furniture I will be enveloped by this triangle, the most common shape in collapsed buildings, when the roof comes down on me. It sounds like a reasonable way to stay safe until I remember that I am not a structural engineer. Odds are you are not either. I cannot predict where parts of the building are going to fall. You cannot predict how falling in love is going to redecorate your life. Sure, you can run through every possible heartbreak scenario in your head and analyze every situation to reach every possible conclusion, but then you actually walk into that person’s house. You realize you are not psychic and you are not prepared. All you can do is be the best version of yourself and hope you do not get crushed.
So what can you do to be ready in the totally likely scenario that true love comes into your life and levels your carefully arranged plans? Fortunately there are Federal, state and other public and private emergency preparedness agencies dedicated to reducing the risk of danger in this situation.
1) Remember this is a natural phenomenon.
It may be scary. It should be scary. The entire world is shifting. It will not be the same world you were living in before. That is the nature of love. Love changes you. Love rearranges the life you had before so you and someone who was not in it before can build something better, meant for both of you.
2) Be prepared.
Just because you have never been in love before does not mean you will never be. Stock up on water bottles and know your escape routes. You should know who you are and what makes you happy.
3) Drop, cover, and hold on.
Falling in love is scary and dangerous thing. Even if it does not work out with that person, it is going to change you forever. There is no great shame in loving someone who does not love you back or in loving someone who you do not spend forever with. It takes great courage to brave that world. If you know how to protect yourself and ride the waves as the world crashes around you, you will survive it. Hold on until the time is right. Do not rush out into the middle of disaster. Wait to build that new life until the time is right.
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