Cliff diving

Only by leaving everything that allows an identity to elude you will you begin to form one.

In whatever place you call home — that place of so much security that you try to force yourself outside its comfortable realms, try to be different and unexpected just because you want to be a piece that doesn’t fit into this puzzle — that’s the place its easiest to run from identity.

At home, you can look over the edge of the cliff and even rappel off it because you know that no matter how risky or dangerous it gets, there are people with belay ropes and carabeeners at top and bottom waiting to lower you to safety, or to hold you in place.

“On belay.”

“Belay on.”

When you decide to go cliff diving, however, entirely unsupervised – well, that’s when the thinking begins. No one above or below to encourage or discourage you to jump, to tell you if the water’s warm or cold, where the jagged rocks are, where the water is calm.

In terms of identity, there’s no one there to remind you of who you’ve been, to tell you which roads will lead you to be the person you or they want or expect you to be.

So, leaving home isn’t supervised rappeling with friends.

It’s cliff diving by yourself.

But it’s only while cliff diving by your lonesome that you’ll discover what it is you treasure most about the life you left on the cliff. During the free fall, you get to see life as you lived it – in your coccoon – and analyze it, more objectively than you had been able to, previously.

What do you like about yourself?

What can you justify? What is justifiable?

What parts of who you were do you wish to keep? What do you want to throw away?

What is worth your time? What is worth your energy?

What is worth love and sadness, elation and tears, hugs and kisses, long drives, homecooked meals, ridiculous games?

Who fills your mind while you’re gone? Who do you miss the most?

What parts of you will you fight to maintain? Which will you let fall away?

What of you do you love?

And such are the question I face in free fall.
Insha’Allah we’ll have the answers when we hit water.