Welcome to Chez Cliff!

It was the 2nd to the last day of the trip.  Our Croatian friend Matko had just shared one of his favorite swimming spots on one of the many islands that make up Croatia.  This swimming spot was actually an underwater cave: under-water in the sense that the entrance is underwater.  You dive down, swim through the opening, and emerge in an cave.  Getting into the cave was easy: the Adriatic practically pushed you into it.  Getting out was another story.

At first, I made good progress escaping the cave.  The tides and currents seemed to pause long enough for me to get away from the cave entrance.  But they came back, pushed me right back towards the mouth.  A few minutes of swimming had just been nullified by 5 seconds of under-current.

My upper-shoulders were completely exhausted from all the swimming we had done.  Fortunately the salt content of the Adriatic Sea is so high that it is nearly impossible to sink.  So I flipped over onto my back and started to use my legs.  I had a swim mask on thus I suddenly found myself completely shut off from everyone else who was swimming towards out boat.  In that isolation, my mind started wandering.

Never has an experience like this enraptured me so.  This entire vacation . . . no, expedition had exceeded all of my expectations.  I had seen beautiful country-sides, met fantastic and wonderful people; ate some of the best food.  To top it all off, I was with my best friends in the world who saw and experienced everything I had.

Then my mind went deeper.  I thought about all the things in life I had done, all the things I had accomplished.  Many times did I hear phrases such as “You’ll never amount to anything” or “You can’t do that.  That’s impossible.” only to have proven them all wrong time and time again.  It had also come full circle.  Those people don’t even register: if I want something, I get it.  If I want to do something, I do it.

And so what if I didn’t have millions of dollars sitting in my bank account.  So what if I’m not on the cover of Fortune magazine.  I’ve accomplished a lot, doing even more, and have bigger plans for the future.  But everything to date that I’ve done, I’m happy.  I’m content.

It was at that moment that I realized if something had happened and I were to suddenly drop from exhaustion or have a heart-attack and drown at least I would die knowing that I was truly happy and proud of my life and what I have done.