What Would Ethan Hunt Do? (Cue: Mission Impossible Music)

New Years Eve 2009; Con Con, Chile.

I’m lounging on a giant rock while gazing at the Pacific Ocean.

The sun is bright. The air, oh the air, is salty and fresh, misting my dirty face.

But my brain is elsewhere…coasting down a slippery slope of future plans and big, scary “WHAT IFS.” It glides past the present moment of confused reflection and right off the crazy cliff of I MOVED TO CHILE?!

Just as I am breaking into the show tune “My life is in the crapper!” an angry grunt from a determined man, hanging one handed on a cliff 20 feet above me, brings my focus back to the task at hand.

I am going to rock climb today. It will be hard. But I am Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible. I am not a weenie.

I strapped on the harness, chalked my balmy hands and gulped.

I took my first step on to the cliff, using my nonexistant upper body strength to hold myself in place. From there I began my slow ascent. Foot by foot, ledge by ledge, finger cramp by finger cramp, I made it 10 feet up.

And there it happened, I was stuck! I could see my next finger hold but no matter how I stretched upwards I couldn't reach it. And the super helpful spectators kept yelling, “Derecho! Derecho! (Right! Right!)”

I screamed back, “How? Where? Speak to me in English!”

I was flustered. What would Ethan Hunt do? And like lightening it struck…HE WOULD JUMP!

So I crouched down and leaped. AND I TOUCHED IT! For about a half second.

And then it was gone and my body slammed hard into the harness. But that’s okay—that’s what the equipment is for; protection from falling.

But something happened—something went wrong—I went wrong—suddenly I’m swinging like Tarzan in the sky. Without warning I felt a crack against my skull and then pain in my ribs!

It gets a little fuzzy after that…

I remember blood on my hands. I remember crying and silently berating myself for being a baby. I was so confused--what just happened?

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?! The rope was caught in a crevasse on the cliff. No one realized until it was too late. When I fell the rope yanked out of the crevasse causing excess slack on the line. This allowed me and my head to pile drive into a jagged rock.

And yes, I had a beautiful, bloody goose egg on my head and a bruised rib…again.

I carefully sat down, trying to make sense of what happened, but my head pounded. I gazed at the waves but they looked fluorescent and made me nauseous. So I closed my eyes and concentrated on my name and age; Nerissa—age, 22.

And all I could think was…please don’t have a concussion…please don’t be bleeding out the brain…please oh please be okay.

And all those scary “WHAT IFS” that had flooded my brain less than 20 minutes ago became irrelevant. Because the future is only what you make of the present. And what happens in the present may deter the future from ever happening…like crashing into jagged cliffs, 8.8 earthquakes or hitchhiking through the South of Chile…oops, story for another time.

And the slippery slope I call “future plans” is only scary now when I think I may not be here to live it. And that is just not an option. (How very Ethan Hunt of me.)