I have never cliff dived but I imagine it feels something similar to what I feel daily. Instead of standing 85 feet above an open pit of beautiful water, the feeling of grit under my toes as they clench to the edge, sounds of water crashing, warm sun lighting my skin and the feeling of my heart beating out of my chest; I find myself buried in boxes, the sound of children’s screams intermittent with laughter ringing in my ears, the feel of sweat on my forehead as I lift the umpteenth box and the constant monkey brain with “what if” questions and the very recurrent statement “you are crazy.” I wonder if cliff divers think that renting your 5 bedroom home in the suburbs and selling the majority of your possessions to live in 168 sq feet with your husband and 2 small children while traveling the US is similar to standing on the cliffs edge right before jumping; probably not. But this is my attempt at fully awakening to a wild and precious life.
It is in the moments of monkey brain chatter that I share one thing in common with the cliff diver, a very rapid heartbeat. I especially experience this when I share with the kind neighbor or the friendly landscaper our plans and am quickly met with laughter, “Your kidding right?” or a facial expression of someone who is certainly looking at a person with three heads. Nope just me! Wild, tree hugging, granola me who has never been more in line with my true self. Am I scared? Hell yes! Do I doubt this choice daily? Um yes! However, when I look at the wild abandoned freedom in my children’s eyes as they meet the day and the sure exhaustion on their faces as they succumb to their beds at night from a life well lived, I am reminded that this is right. Living in a cookie cutter house, working in a cookie cutter job, taking the cookie cutter Christmas photos to send to our friends we never have time to see because we are working endlessly to create a lifestyle we never truly wanted reminds me that I want to live my life like my children do. I want to model for them that it is possible to follow the wants of your truest self so that when you succumb to exhaustion at the end of the night you can smile knowing you did great things this day with “your one wild and precious life.”