Growing up, my family and I split our time between the Pacific Northwest Mountains and the Southeast Asian Tropics. I had no shortage of novel opportunities to take risks and explore far beyond my comfort zone. This environment instilled a mentality during my adolescence where I became more comfortable and felt more myself outside the realm of homeostasis. And when Carson came into my life, this became an obvious pillar of our friendship. Carson and I were close for many reasons, but our shared pursuit of grand adventure and calculated risk defined our last moments together.
In the days and weeks following Carson’s passing, I felt extremely lost. My sense of self began to self-mutilate as I tempored with the strange sensation of grief. Fear enveloped me, and I could feel an entirely new person emerging. No matter how hard I tried, time’s unrelenting tide pulled me further and further from the version of myself trapped alongside Carson’s final moment. Further from the man Carson knew. In a desperate attempt to cling to this past self, I uprooted my life and booked a one way ticket to Cairns, Australia, where I enrolled myself in a five month program to become a dive master. It wasn’t a complete whim, as I had shared this aspiration with Carson a few months prior. Somehow, if I could follow through on a decision I made as that past self, and honor the type of life move Carson made, maybe I could find that old version of myself.
What followed was five months of extreme exposure therapy that rekindled my relationship with the ocean on an immensely intimate level, 90 days of living on a boat in cramped crew quarters, and demanding 16 hour work days. The seawater turned my feet into a bacteria-ridden Petri dishes, and my skin formed lesions. But it certainly wasn’t all bad. I made lifelong friends from all over the world, got to dive with more sharks, turtles, octopi and nudis than I ever could’ve imagined. And now, I am a certified Dive Master.
At the time, the decision to move to Australia felt like both an escape from the daily reminders of the void in my life and a last-ditch attempt to save my intrepidity. Carson’s death—his absence from life—served as a landmark in time. But in reality, we’re not meant to stay the same. Whether we change as a result of a massive life experience or the unnoticeable sum of a million daily decisions, change is adaptation. I’m not the person Carson knew. Not exactly. But I keep his spirit in my thoughts and his relentless pursuit of challenge in my heart and I’m proud of the person I’m becoming.
David Fuller
