Happy Holidays From Inside The Pool

I’m not sure how long I spent along the edge of that diving board. Weeks, months or maybe years though regardless of the time spent up there, it seemed like an eternity back then. I remember standing almost paralyzed not by indecision but something else. Maybe it was the fear of that long drop down. Maybe it was the excitement of standing on that precipice of the unknown or maybe the comfort knowing that at any point….I could decide to turn back. Regardless, I stood there way too long. My surroundings blurred into the background and the only thing I could focus on was the water below. Man….I spent what seemed like lifetimes up there. I mounted and dismounted that spring board so many times in my life as though the ritual resided in the cycle never to end in a different conclusion other than once again fleeing to dry land.

But on one occasion, I remember saying to myself one day that THAT would be the day. On THAT day, I had a one way ticket and it ended on the other side of that ledge. And so I mounted that diving board and stood at the edge and tucked away deep that fear and that comfort and all those things that kept me upon that perch. With no one below to catch me, I heaved myself over and I fell and on that day……I lived. And once at the bottom, the only thing I could think about was getting back up on that board and continuing to live….over and over and over again.

While we may have many opportunities in life to make that choice to thrust ourselves forward or to turn back and try again later, the summer sun sets all too quickly. Hopefully there will be plenty more summers in all of our lives but it’s never a guarantee. So before the sun sets, make sure to take the plunge. And when you experience that moment where you feel your heart beating so hard that it feels as though it could burst out of your chest, know that the feeling is not that of a closeness to the end but rather a nearness to the beginning.

And while I write this to no one in particular, I’d hope at the very least this letter finds it’s way into the hands of my two young sons one day. If so, I can only hope that this serves as not a letter of comfort but a message of inspiration. While your father might not always be there to catch you when you fall, know that dad was never afraid to jump. Nicholas and Ryan…..may you always find the courage to jump.

 

-Justin