There’s something about a deep, yawning abyss that calls to everyone. That whisper from the void, enticing you to fall down, to just let go–a tiny voice in the back of your head at odds with your bolder survival instinct. When you’re standing on the edge of a cliff, you’d rather listen to the part of you that tells you not to jump. But what about when it’s wrong?
What can you do when that immutable instinct to survive is completely misdirected, when taking the leap is better for you than not? Do you tell yourself you never wanted to jump anyway, that it doesn’t matter to you? Do you just stand there, waiting for someone else to push you, to pull you into the water with them? Do you run away as fast as possible, hair tangling in the wind, branches tearing at your skin?
I stand right on the edge, paralyzed. But god, I yearn for the water below. Warm and crystal clear, shimmering with what I’ve always wanted most. But I can’t make my body move. My mind is thrashing and screaming at me; if I go over that edge, I’m gonna fucking die. The fear is unbearable, something with immense claws carving its way through me, seizing me by the neck during every quiet moment. Some cruel cosmic joke laughing into my mouth with its devilish gaze, leaving nothing within me but a quiet certainty that if I ever show my true face, I’ll be butchered and left to bleed out alone. That no matter how much love I give, it can never, ever return to me.
But I dig my claws in, I clench my fists around the one thing I think I could really take that leap for. And I watch in horror from within myself as I stand completely still, toes curling over the ledge. I can’t let myself go all the way… What if I’ll never be ready, never be able to risk it all?
I tell myself–there is a good time to meet the person you could envision at your breakfast table. To feel under your hands and your lips the skin that seems like it was woven just to be pressed against yours through the entire night, entwined and enmeshed until you can’t tell the difference between bodies. There is a right time to meet the person whose eyes you’d want to see glaring back at you from your daughter’s petulant face when you’ve pissed her off. To play, to argue, to heal, to laugh with the person you might actually be okay with brushing your teeth next to every night. There is a good time, a right time to love someone you could actually envision a future with.
And the right time is when you’re ready… right? When you’re confident you can risk it all, fling yourself over the edge and fall through the open air into the waiting unknown. When you aren’t afraid anymore, when you’re ready to fight for your dreams…
How will I know when I’m ready?
You will never be ready. It will always have to be a leap of faith.
Method of Mancy 