Out of your comfort zone

by Jaydon Munn

“Every year it gets a little bit harder to get back to that feeling of when we were fifteen, and we could jump in the river upstream and let the current carry us to the beginning where the river met the sea.” – Josh Pyke (The Summer)

Lewis withdrew himself from the safe confines of his home, leaving behind his reserve and his caution. And he drove. He didn’t know where he was going, and he wasn’t yet sure why, but he did. He drove until his car spluttered and whined in protest. He stopped at a roadside petrol station and refuelled, and then drove on.
He didn’t know how much time had passed, and in the grand scheme of things, did it really matter? Lewis was free. He realised now why he was driving; the long, winding curves of the open road liberated him. It was just him, his wheels, and the road. No deadlines, no bosses, and no routine.
Lewis eventually found himself on a massive cliff, far above the waves below, amidst the coastal beauty of Northern New South Wales, near Byron Bay. He’d been here one before, for a music festival, back when he was young and spontaneous. Everything about the festival spoke of freedom. Drones arrived, and were no longer drones. The music transformed them. They became full of verve and joy, and who knows how many illegal substances. For a weekend, they escaped. Lewis didn’t want to escape for a weekend though. He needed longer. He didn’t know how much, just longer.
And with that, Lewis threw himself from the cliff.

And it was profound. As Lewis fell, he grew. As he plummeted, a part of him was deposited at the top of the cliff, far above him. Just as a part of him had been deposited back home, far behind him.
Lewis hit the water with a massive splash, this splash signalling a changing of the guard. The stresses that had not been left behind as he plunged through the air, now melted away, fading and diluting into the waves around him. Lewis had just shed a skin, and what had emerged was raw and uncensored. He realised that he had been subconsciously waiting for this for the past ten years.