Diving into the New Year

Humans are complex creatures.  We make resolutions at the end of December to be better people, and then the majority of adults spend the first of the year exhausted and hung over.  And yet we make the resolutions.  A major reason I love the new year is the renewed faith people have in themselves to accomplish goals that were apparently too out of reach in November or early December.  One of the only qualms I have with New Year’s resolutions is how hard people are on themselves when they break them.  Friend, you had to have suspected you were not going to be carting yourself out of bed at 5am every morning to go to the gym.  Unless there was a really good bakery beside the gym, and you could eat your croissant there and be like, “Close enough.”

I don’t like that we curb our ambitions because we might fail, or dislike this time of year because it reminds us of our rather predictable missteps and resignations. Let’s just be honest about our lack of foresight: very rarely do we know at the end of one year what will be good for us through the next 12 months.  I can’t even skillfully plan out my groceries for a week.  When I sat down and thought about it all, actually, some of my favorite memories have come from broken promises to myself.  So, in honor of 2012 and all of the times I had to actively ignore that inner voice Oprah is so fond of telling us to listen to, here is a fun time that occurred because I released myself from my resolutions.

Those of you who have been reading this for a while may vaguely recall my declaration to never cliff dive.  Mostly, my determination to avoid this form of recreation was borne of my impressive knowledge of limnology: Sometimes there are jagged rocks on the bottom of lakes.  I have never been, and, I thought, would never be, so hard-pressed for something fun to do that I would feel compelled to spontaneously throw myself from a cliff.  I have cable.  Plus, Bella Swan took an angst-ridden jump off a cliff in New Moon, and sort of succeeded in zapping any bad-assery from the act at all. 

Yet, one summer a friend and I had his jet skis out on a lake, and he pointed out a ledge in the distance. 
“We could jump if you wanted,” he said in a tone that clearly implied I could say no and he would not judge me at all.  I had one sane moment of appreciation for his neutrality before I more deeply considered his tone.  Perhaps he anticipated I would say no.  He anticipated this response, no doubt, because I am responsible, and level-headed, and enjoy possessing full mobility of all my limbs.  Clearly these suppositions were unacceptable.

“Definitely!  I’ve always wanted to cliff dive.  Let’s go!”  I then proceeded to race him to the base of the cliff.  I cannot say why I not only lied, but channeled my sister to give the peppiest response to his request possible, but I did. 

We tied the jet skis off by the shore, and swam around the base of the cliff to find a place to begin our climb.  He grabbed one of those random tree branches that sometimes stick out of cliffs (I don’t know why this is a thing, but it is), and swung himself out of the water.  After watching him go, I silently plopped my forehead against the surface of the water in grim acceptance of my fate, then laboriously followed.

This is the way it will all end, I thought to myself somberly as we carefully climbed the slippery, moss covered rocks.  I am going to literally jump off of a cliff to impress a boy.  Somewhere on the planet, Betty Friedan sighed.

When we reached the top, we both peered anxiously over the edge.  I’m going to be upfront with you and say the cliff was only about 50 feet over the water.  It doesn’t sound like a lot, but I don’t even like falling from my 5’7” height, so I’m just assuming 50 feet wouldn’t be fun either. 

“You can go first,” he said gallantly.  I raised my eyebrows.  “Unless you’d rather I go.”  The implicit unless you’re afraid hung in the air between us, and I took a deliberate step forward.

“I guess I should have asked before,” my friend’s conscience seemed to catch up with him.  “You’re not afraid of heights?”

I rolled my eyes.  “No real issue with heights, just a wee bit hesitant to jump from a cliff.  But I think that’s just an indicator of prominent mental health.” 

He remained silent as I looked over the edge again, trying to pretend I had the mental capacity necessary to calculate a safe trajectory for my jump. 

“If I die,” I said, “I’m going to kill you.  And then sue you.”

“Want me to count for you?”

“In my experience, math will only exacerbate the problem,” and those could have been my last words, because after ensuring the world would remember my ability to make bad jokes in uncomfortable situations, I took a breath and ungracefully leapt from the cliff, stifling what I’m sure would have been a confidence-inspiring squeak. 

I can compare the sensation to a rollercoaster with no safety restraints, or a slide without the friction, but none of those phrases really do cliff-diving justice, especially when the entire time I was falling I was berating myself for having the ability of a nine-year-old to forgo a dare that no one ever even uttered.  And yet I was also feeling sheepishly triumphant, because I had done what we all want to do as often as possible: overcome fear – an admittedly reasonable fear, but a fear nonetheless.  I’m definitely not addicted to that form of recreation (if you want to know what kept me from making cliff-diving a necessary activity of my summers, I’d have to quote the voice of our generation and say, “It’s the climb”), but I like to be able to faux-nonchalantly tell people I enjoy cliff-diving.

The experience is a good reminder for me that I don’t always know what I’m doing.  Especially when I’m making resolutions, at any point in the year.  So, friends, if you slack a little this year, if you skip the gym for a day (or a week), or you forgo an hour of introspective journaling for an hour of trashy television, more power to you.  You’re right where you’re supposed to be for 2013.  Good things happen to us when we’re being human.  Happy New Year, and happy reading.