The Brink Of Becoming

Emerging From The Liminal Realm (6m read)

Yesterday was my Mom’s birthday. I woke up excited to wish her well, only to find she’d already reached out, early that morning, asking how I was doing. I couldn’t hold back the tears.

Watching Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz go blow-for-blow in a five set, over five hour marathon match at the French Open was nothing short of gladiatorial. When the red clay dust settled on its epic end, only one man stood basking in the sweet thrill of triumph.

What more can be said about this warrior with a racket, Carlos Alcaraz?

I thought no one could move me the way Novak Djokovic has over the past two decades. But this guy. This short — by professional men’s tennis standards — dogged, scrappy, spartan, cagey, lionhearted, never say die Spaniard.

I just love the way he fights. The steely look in his eyes. His physical commitment to the game. His signature sleeveless swagger. He’s even inspired me to start lifting weights, become physically stronger, especially in my upper body and arms, so I too can strut around with that same bold, bare-armed confidence.

When Alcaraz was down three consecutive match points in the fourth set, it felt as if all hope was lost.

Then something magical happened.

Sinner’s level dropped ever so slightly and Carlos seized the momentum and never let it go. Watching Alcaraz chase down every ball, whipping his racket around his head like Thor wielding Mjölnir against the blood-orange backdrop of the clay courts, is simply poetry in motion.

Childish Dreams

Every young athlete dreams of being on the brink, when the world feels like its given up, when you want to relent, only to rise. We grow up watching our heroes: Jordan flying, Messi weaving, Kobe willing, Brady clutching, Serena dominating, Djokovic enduring, Federer gliding, Nadal vamos’ing, Woods striking, Slater carving, Alcaraz acrobating and we imagine that moment for ourselves. The final shot. The last serve. The impossible made real. A moment when we can manifest destiny, and we become legend.

I always felt more deeply drawn to the victories born from prolonged suffering, the stories with the longest nights before the dawn breaks, marked by enduring strife and interminable struggle. The rebirths, the reincarnations, the metamorphoses.

As I entered adulthood, I realized I would never get the opportunity to experience those fleeting moments of greatness, of grandeur, of glory. To overcome momentary adversity on a monumental stage. To look up through tearful eyes into a sea of awe inspired faces. To feel, in that instant, more alive, more connected, more love than any other human on the planet.

The bigger the dream the better the story. ~Richelle E. Goodrich

When Dreams Become Reality

I’ve never fully let go of that dream of the impossible comeback.

There’s a twisted part of me that has always romanticized ruin—just to craft my own impossible comeback, clawing my way back from the brink, one hand inching upward out of the earth at a time. Deep down, there’s a masochistic shadow that wants to see who would still love me with nothing — no money, no stuff, broken, beaten, just me. Someone willing to say, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here and I’m with you until the end.

As my dear friend

Jeff Sun

warned me last night “be careful what you wish for.”

Though the chance of my childhood fantasy of staging an epic athletic comeback can now only ever be a dream… I see my life as a battle, a match, an epic tale, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey. I’m not swinging a racket, striking a ball or gliding across a liquid canvas. There is no field, no time clock, no jersey, no crowd.

From the raw clay of my own life, I can create my own clutch comeback. I can forge my own hero’s journey.

For the past year, I’ve meditated at the edge of the abyss — peering over the precipice, feeling for a way forward that feels right for me. For the first time in my life, I’ve stayed in the discomfort of uncertainty, returning to the darkness, exploring my own underworld. I’ve remained present with what is true.

The collapse of the persona is often mistaken for depression.
~Carl Jung¹

Some have accused me of playing the victim, told me to get up and stop feeling sorry for myself. But there’s a world of difference between self-pity, wallowing in shame, and moving through the process of becoming. I’ve learned the hard way it is okay to feel crestfallen, depressed, disappointed, empty, hollowed out, to feel broken. In doing so, I’ve honored my truth, my integrity.

I feel proud for not allowing my setbacks to calcify into cruelty. That I’ve taken grief, longing, and sorrow — and shaped them into something meaningful, something purposeful. Through vulnerability, I’ve invited others to join me in a circle of truth, healing, and shared humanity.

This time, I want to come through the other side with grace, compassion and kindness, for myself and especially for others, win or lose. I want to enter the next chapter with a clean conscious and a clear slate, armed with a deeper understanding and appreciation for life. I want to emerge from the liminal realm with a heart that is more open, yet resilient.

So here I wait patiently, in quiet trust, for my sacred recalibration, something aligned, something that feels right in my gut, something that sparks my sacral chakra. As Joseph Campbell so elegantly stated, I want to make my “heartbeat match the beat of the universe.”

I here. I am not alone. I am all in for the long game of love and life.

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. ~Robert G. Ingersoll

Thank you for reading.

Now I ask you: What was the darkest chapter of your hero’s journey? At what point did your world fall apart, when everything you believed in was tested, and the only place left to venture was deeper into your own heart of darkness?

---

Appendix

¹Why You Have NO MOTIVATION Left After Facing Your Shadow | Carl Jung Quotes