Now I am 40

Instantly and overnight.

This is how the change has occurred. I am new in my skin. I am a quiet strength. I have no need for any of the little distractions that stretched their net beneath me. I have crawled my way through the frayed supports and I have finally found the water and it is fine.

I was imagining the fall but I had forgotten the ocean beneath it, the vast excitement of possibilities lapping at me. The sheer pleasure of the threat of drowning.

I have been clinging to my younger self like a life jacket, comforted by the whistle and the toggles which cause inflation, and the little light. For a moment that lasted 20 years, I had forgotten about my own natural bouyancy. Now that the fall is behind me I can feel the pleasure of the slap of waves and the little nipping of fish that share the water with me. I know about sharks that lurk and the possible dangers they bring with them, but I am a wiley creature. I have swum through hoops slick as a dolphin and all this play has been good training for my sudden transition.

From the paddling pool to the lap pool and now this high diving act has brought me to the ocean. The dangerous, glorious ocean replete with the possibility of whales.