Edge of My Ocean

Updated July 28^th, 2011

I’m standing on the edge. The edge of myself and everything I am. In a split second I could jump off and dive into the deepest depths of myself. The top of my ocean is covered with sunbathed waves lapping peacefully at a jagged cliff. Soft mist appears then quickly dissipates where my waves have made impact. Any beauty I see does nothing to end the fears I have of my ocean and its mysterious depths. I especially fear what lies directly beneath the surface, even more so than the ocean’s floor where everything is almost certain to be dark. My fear is that beneath my ocean’s magnificent waves and misty breezes, lies an even more astounding sight: a colorfully decorated coral reef: a reef whose beauty and glory is attractive and even a little bit surprising. Such a great rainbow of colors and organisms surround me the moment I dive under. It’s incredible. It’s perfect. But when I swim around the reef I scare large fish from their homes, I disrupt their peace. I cut my hands and feet on the sharp coral, and sting myself on the passing eel. The depths of myself are a beautiful rose and its thorns are in full, full bloom. My greatest aspects, my coral reef, are ridden with danger and even destructive tendencies. I fear my unknowable beauty, because I understand that just like everything else, beauty can be perverted and used in a different manner. Love can be addiction. Courage can become anger. Trust can be blind. And intelligence can be used to manipulate, to destroy, and to build up your worst desires. The depths of myself are the worst and best parts of my ocean, for even in the darkest of storms my depths remain the same and even on the brightest sunniest days my depths still remain the same. Yet there are other reefs in my ocean I haven’t discovered. Other gardens I have yet to swim by. And with every passing day, I come across other oceans, the depths of others, who allow me to borrow their reef’s colors and I let them borrow mine. It is my job to search them, to search them all actually, just as it is to fully expand and explore my own reef. I’m still standing on the edge of ocean now waiting for the moment I can jump in. The moment when I am ready to face my beautifully peligroso and unique coral reef without fear. The moment I can truly embrace my own colors. I stand and wait. Wondering. When will that moment come?