Don't Come Back Until You're Bleeding...

"Don't come back until you're bleeding..."
I said this in the bottom of a river gorge to the friends I was hiking with as I cleaned the dirt out of the scraps on my arm after almost going over a 10-15 foot cliff. 
Now don't get me wrong this was definitely not a death-worthy cliff, 
But a I'm gonna be fucked up in the end--how are we gonna get out of this gorge?; I may have broken something--cliff. 
It happened so fast and it was amazing. 
My heart was pounding...I was so shook up. 
Luckily, I had a friend there to help give a quick hand and one rock to finally give me a footing. 
Point is after that, I was bleeding and hurting a little bit, you know that annoying sting....but I felt alive. 
The alive feeling you get after accomplishing something or that first kiss or the way you feel when you look in that special someones eyes so deeply you get lost...kind of alive.

Anyway, back to my first statement...
Don't come back until you're bleeding...
What does this mean? Physically?  Emotionally? 
At the time I quite literally meant it physically, but you know, that statement stuck with me like it had been my mantra for years...As we hiked our way upstream trying to find this waterfall (that we never found by the way)...I couldn't get it out of my head.

I feel like we need to force ourselves to go out and get scratched and scraped, be scared and wonder over things. I feel like if we don't come back with a little blood on our skin or on our shirts; we didn't play hard enough or adventure long enough.  It's about getting dirt in our wounds and sweat in our eyes. Its about rough hands and sore muscles. It's about not really knowing the limits and if we do know them...jumping that line so fast we might get in trouble. 

I feel like we need to come back bleeding and not be able to see it, but feel it on the inside; 
We need to have cuts on our hearts and scrapes on our souls. 
We need to question life....and ourselves....and where we are..... 
And where we are going...and ask ourselves if it is real, if it's the truth....and if it's what we really want. 
We need to let ourselves cry and know its okay, because we let ourselves finally bleed on the inside, 
Whether it's over a good thing or a bad, a wish or a reality. 
A dream or a nightmare. 
We need to push boundaries and have boundaries push back; 
Just so that we know we are alive. 

I want to have heart-break and heart-mends. I want to have scars on both my skin and my heart and soul to have my stories to share....
I want to have dreams that never come true, so that I'll never stop chasing them. 
I never want to have everything I want.... 
So life will never lose wonder.

I want to live my life so vividly and take into account that this day may be my last...
That this world is meant for me to explore and make my own.

And, well, here I am, 7 hours later, sitting here...my shoulders are sunburnt, dirt still in my cuts and still on my feet, blood is still on my back...
And you know, I couldn't be happier, because I came back bleeding on my body and on my heart. 

Live live fully and don't come back until you're bleeding...