Someday, perhaps very soon, you will find yourself standing on the edge of a precipice. Your whole life lies behind you. A life that you want to leave behind. Only, the future lies far below, so far that from where you stand you can't tell what it looks like. The only way to know for sure is by jumping off the edge and plunging into the unknown. But something holds you back. Fear.

People will tell you that it's not the jump you're afraid of. It's the falling.

I tend to disagree. I've always thought to fall would be the best part. To feel weightless. As though gravity had left you entirely. As though your feet would never touch the earth again. As you fall, you could almost imagine a pair of wings unfurling from your back. And the wings are gossamer and shimmer in the sun. In that moment you are utterly at the mercy of the winds and you know .... or maybe you hope, that they will take you somewhere wonderful. Somewhere where castles sit on clouds.

I'm not afraid to jump. I welcome the fall. So what is it that I fear?

I fear that I'm wrong. That there are no wings and th`at my palace of clouds will dissolve when I get too close, like the fine, early morning mist. Slowly my beautiful world of dreams will crumble around me and without wings, how could I escape from it?

The real world is not beautiful. I have watched it drain the life out of my father and replace that life with alcohol. If ever a castle on the clouds existed for him, it is gone now. Torn apart by the wind and the clouds are nothing but clouds, that block out his sun. His world is a world of hate. A world of self loathing. A world of darkness. All he's ever known is the fear.

Despite him, I have witnessed so many moments of beauty. The secret smile a mother shares with her child, as if he were the only thing that existed for her. The sun that rises and sets every day, painting the sky brilliant orange and fiery red and gentle pink. The world at night, when everything has gone to bed and the streetlights are the only thing disrupt the amiable peace.

It is in those moments, that I can believe my world, my palace of clouds, still exists somewhere in the harsh realties of the twenty first century. But deep down there is doubt. Perhaps I'm just a wishful child and my world is one that only exists when I am sleeping. Without jumping, I will never know. But I can not jump.

My dreams are all I have. How can I risk losing them?