The worst feeling in the world might be ...

What's the worst feeling in the world?

The answer probably depends on who you ask; there's one candidate for Worst Feeling in the World that's been at the top of my list for a couple of years.

I live on a boat, but no matter whether a boat is huge or small, whether it's got central heat and air, HDTV, running hot water and a bathtub, satellite communications and engines big enough to drag Hawaii around The Strait of Magellan and into the Atlantic, there's still one critical way that boats are different than houses.

Houses don't move.

Boats, on the other hand, are affected by (and generally at the mercy of) current, wind, tides and wake from other (inconsiderate) boaters.

Even if you can't always feel it, unless they're out of the water, sunk, or trapped in ice, boats are always moving, either rocking, swaying or bobbing back and forth.  And a boat that's already moving is always about to move even more .... usually in the direction you'd least expect.

The constant rocking becomes more problematic when climbing on or off the boat, in part because the dock and your boat's deck are never at the same height.  On Calypso, it's a 35" lung-emptying grunt either way, climbing either on or off the boat.

Which gets more tricky if it's dark, windy, raining, or sleeting.  Worse yet when all four are happening at the same time ... and you're already as clumsy as  The Tin Man with three under-torqued joints, like me.

Just imagine standing on the side of a boat in the dark, trying to unzipper the canvas door to  get inside.   You've done it hundreds of times, but of course tonight is the night the zipper's chosen to get ornery and stick ... so you've gotta manuever into a position to switch hands.

There's nothing in the darkness behind you but about the eight feet of empty space separating your precious, one-of-a-kind head from the unforgiving dock and its metal pilings ... oh, and an awkward, bone-snapping fall after that.  People die falling off boats the time, they really do.  

You try to stop thinking about what it would sound like crashing noggin-first onto the concrete and then gurgling away under the waves, because all you've gotta do is let go long enough to get that silly zipper un-stuck and sliding again.

You reach for the zipper with your right hand when a sudden chop of wind and waves simultaneously hit from opposite directions ... and in that unfair millisecond you and the boat also start moving in opposite directions.  

You think you can regain your balance like every other time but No, 

You're going to fall now.  And the outcome's gonna be very, very bad.

You know the I'm falling backwards feeling, but that's not the worst feeling.

In the first instant as your body pitches back, the labyrinth system in your inner ear senses Fall!! Fall Fall! and starts screaming for any available muscle and tendon to react and Do something right now!

You know the feeling: it's like a sudden punch in the middle of the gut that makes you wanna vomit.  But that's not the worst feeling either.

Your reflex arc takes command, temporarily by-passing sending any more signals to your brain, and begins firing spinal motor neurons with a panicked urgency to solve the problem your conscious mind (and your clumsiness) has created.  

Your reflex arc is just a bundle of neurons and can't actually see anything, but somehow it already knows You installed a handhold on the side of the boat ... to prevent falls like this from happening.

Your arm shoots out faster than a frog's tongue can snag a fly, and makes a frenzied grab for the handhold.

You got it.

Clutching the handhold and wondering if you can regain your balance before your fingertips peel off under the strain of your weight sounds bad, but the worst feeling in the world isn't reaching out for a handhold ... and only grabbing hold with your fingertips.

No sir.

The worst feeling in the world might be falling backward and reaching through the darkness for a handhold ... that isn't there.

Surely God is my help; 
       the Lord is the one who sustains me.

- Psalm 54:4