Full Descent

Full Descent

The descent never feels like falling at first. It feels like slowing. It feels like thickening. It feels like the air turning to syrup around me. After so much altitude, so much brightness, so much velocity, the first downward pull feels almost gentle — a soft tug at the edges of my mind, a heaviness settling into my limbs.

But gravity is patient.

And gravity is absolute.

The full descent begins with the loss of momentum.

Not a stop — a drag.

Thoughts that once raced now stumble.

Ideas that once arrived fully formed now feel distant, muffled, half-lit.

The internal brightness dims, not all at once, but in flickers — like a power grid straining under its own demand.

My mind, which had been a corridor of open doors, begins to close them one by one. Not intentionally. Not consciously. Just from exhaustion. The speed that once felt like brilliance now feels like burden. The urgency that once felt like purpose now feels like pressure.

This is the first truth of descent:

the mind doesn’t fall — it sinks.

My body feels it next.

The vibration in my chest becomes a weight.

The shallow breath becomes a struggle.

The muscles that were braced for movement now ache from holding too much for too long.

The lightness that once felt like freedom becomes a hollowness.

The brightness becomes glare.

The altitude becomes distance.

And the distance becomes loneliness.

The full descent is not dramatic.

It’s quiet.

It’s slow.

It’s inevitable.

I begin to feel the lag — the delay between thought and action, between intention and movement. My hands, once too quick, now feel heavy. My gestures slow. My voice softens, not out of calm, but out of depletion.

The world, which had been too bright, now feels dim.

Not peaceful — muted.

Not quiet — muffled.

As if someone has wrapped the entire atmosphere in cotton.

This is the second truth of descent:

the senses don’t shut down — they dull.

My children notice this stage too.

They move closer.

They speak more gently.

They watch me with a different kind of vigilance — not caution now, but concern.

They can feel the gravity pulling me down.

They can feel the brightness leaving my face.

They can feel the altitude collapsing.

They don’t name it.

They don’t ask.

They simply adjust — the way they always do.

The descent deepens when the emotional weather shifts.

The confidence evaporates.

The clarity dissolves.

The internal narration that once felt like revelation becomes fog.

I begin to feel the weight of everything I ignored on the way up — the dishes, the messages, the responsibilities, the small tasks that now feel impossibly large. The world I outran is waiting for me at the bottom, and I can feel its gravity long before I reach it.

This is the third truth of descent:

the fall is not the impact — it’s the anticipation of impact.

The mind begins to brace.

The body begins to brace.

The heart begins to brace.

And the bracing is its own kind of collapse.

The full descent is not a single moment.

It’s a series of small surrenders.

A thought I can’t finish.

A task I can’t start.

A sentence I can’t form.

A breath that feels too shallow.

A heaviness that settles into my bones.

The sky doesn’t drop me.

It releases me.

And gravity does the rest.

By the time I reach the bottom, I am not broken.

I am emptied.

I am dimmed.

I am quiet.

The fall is not the end of the story.

It is the end of the sky.

And the beginning of the ground.

The Moment of Impact

Impact is never a single moment, but there is always a point where the descent stops being theoretical and becomes physical. A point where gravity stops pulling and starts claiming. A point where the body, the mind, and the world collide in a way that cannot be ignored or outrun.

It doesn’t feel like hitting the ground.

It feels like the ground rising to meet me.

The first sensation is heaviness — a sudden, undeniable weight settling into my limbs, my chest, my thoughts. Not exhaustion. Not sadness. Just density. As if every molecule in my body has doubled in mass.

Then comes the silence.

Not peace — absence.

The internal noise that once raced and sparked and fractured goes quiet all at once, like someone has pulled the plug on the entire system. The brightness extinguishes. The urgency evaporates. The momentum collapses.

It’s not relief.

It’s vacancy.

Impact is the moment where the mind stops moving and the body takes over.

Where the chemistry that once lifted me now drops me.

Where the altitude I chased becomes the distance I have to fall through.

There is a split second — a breath, a flicker — where I feel suspended between two worlds. The sky above me thinning into memory. The ground below me rising with inevitability.

And then I land.

Not with violence.

With finality.

Impact is not the crash.

Impact is the recognition.

The recognition that the upward weather is over.

The recognition that the descent is complete.

The recognition that I am no longer in the sky.

Impact is the moment I return to gravity.

To weight.

To consequence.

To the body I abandoned on the way up.

It is the end of Part I.

And the beginning of everything that comes after.