FALLING down a cliff feels very much like falling down a metaphorical rabbit hole.

Here’s what happens: You slip and fall. You grab at the ground, but find no purchase.

I was in Hawaii circa 1998 when my real-life incident of slipping halfway down a cliff
happened. It was close to midnight, and the moon was close to being full, throwing shadows along the smooth rocks that led into the sea.

Like Alice in Wonderland, I’d caught sight of something – memory fails me when I try to recall exactly what – and walked into the shadows.

There was sea spray, something wet, and I slipped. Faster than a shot, I was on my back and headed feet-first for the ocean, 20 metres below. I clawed at the ground and for a few frightening moments, thought I wasn’t going to make it.

I don’t know how, but I managed to slow the fall and crawled back up the cliff on my hands and knees.

That experience came back full-force last week when, too curious for my own good, I looked up an old boyfriend online. I’d misspelt his name (perhaps a deliberate slip on the part of my subconscious mind) for years when idly trying to search for him.

But last week, I grew tenacious and tracked him down through mutual friends in a twisted game of six degrees.

I found him, clicked on his profile – and fell down the rabbit hole.

We’d seen each other fitfully for two years (you could have sort of called it dating, only it wasn’t, really). I wasn’t treated badly, but I wasn’t treated well either. And there are things that happened that I will never put up with again.

But he’d also educated me about music, taught me to love soul and dance music in equal measure, taught me how those beats could touch my very spirit. How I loved him for that, for you cannot help but love the ones who help expand you in some way.

There were things I’d kept forgotten – how unhappy I was with him, how I disliked myself for going back to him not once, but many times over. In his profile, he seemed to be exactly the same as he had always been.

But all that I’d stashed away into a drawer in my mind burst forth, and there was no dam for any of it. I was sliding down the cliff, and trying desperately to claw my way back up once again.

I slammed my laptop shut. Some things, I later concluded, are best left buried.

Several days later, I was struck by a BBC broadcast in which Irish journalist Tim Brannigan was interviewed about his search for his identity, and for a father he’d never known. Brannigan had written a book about his search, titled Where Are You Really From?

It was that provocative question that held my attention. And, at yoga later that day, I began to realise that my practice is, in a sense, not my own.

The postures that I faithfully move through almost every day don’t belong to me – they belong to every teacher who has contributed to me.

They’re the people who have, when I’ve fallen, told me to try again. They’ve
corrected my postures, nurtured me and watched me grow.

They have made my practice what it is, and I am who I am because of them. It’s the same with that former boyfriend, I now realise.

Yes, there are things I would have myself forget.

But he taught me what I wanted in a relationship. It was the antithesis of him and what we had, but I credit him for showing me at least that.

Today, I am lucky to have found the very relationship I want and need – one that fills me with joy every single day.

Ultimately, that ex has helped me know what I want in a man – and in a way, has made me who I am, what I am. For that reason, a little piece of my heart belongs to him, always.

It’s not enough to go on for me to click the “add as friend” button.

Some things shall remain buried, but with so much more love and gratitude than there was before.

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