Grief Is Power- Essays

AT SEA

I am incredibly Thalassophobic, which is the fear of the deepest bodies of water. Yet I am excited to go to have a ride in the ocean.

I get stranded in the middle of the sea on a boat with nothing to hold onto. But I do not want to move away anymore.

While I sit there in the middle of nowhere, rocked by the building waves of the sea current, l fear to go on searching for any signs of land or human life. There is safety in certainty. And I am somewhat certain that if I have come this far, someone else will also come this far. That the farthest I can go is the farthest I can know anyone else would come to. So I sit and wait.

While the day keeps crumbling into darkness and eventually plunges below the horizon, and I see pinkish-orange clouds beneath the breathtaking sky in utter beauty, I still wait. Hopes begin to crumble by the thought. And as I sit there with the appearing and reappearing moon in sight, with stars dangling like Christmas, I begin to cry.

But then I still do not move from there. Why should I? What if I go in the wrong direction? What if I am driving farther from any land? What if where I am going the weather is not favorable? Sit tight and hope. I am not a survivor or a fighter in any medium of those terms. I am, if anything, ready and frightened to meet any end that I am uncertain of. So at this stage, moving or not moving at all remains with the same fear: The anxiety of the uncertain and unknown.

I debate with myself throughout, loudly, whether I should paddle or not. How much can I paddle? But as I wait to scold myself for my mistake, crying, I feel another anxiety building up. How long is it till something happens? A huge wave? A gigantic whale playing acrobatics? A shark in the deep, wild ocean? A hungry creature underbody? What if wherever I go by paddling may be much more dangerous than where I am now? How long till the waves begin to build in volume and force and react to the moon coming by?

Where do I go and what do I do?

If going somewhere uncertain is dangerous enough territory, isn't staying in the same place for long also just as dangerous?

Do I find peace in the now, by looking at the stars, drifting into dreams with a cold breeze, or do I succumb to the fear of what will happen to me next? In both circumstances, what I am angst about the most is what is to come? The future; not the happening as much as the "will happen." Now I begin to curse myself for everything that has happened. The mind drifts away like a boomerang and goes back to the past, through all this water and confronts all the moments of torment I have had. Now I will begin to connect the past to what is happening right now:

If I had a better childhood, I would not have been traumatized enough to yearn for coming this far. If I had a better, understanding family I would not have any desire for such reckless, ambivalent freedom. I wish my dad were better. Or mother. Or brother. Or uncle or aunt. Or friends, what about my friends? Were they any better? No? Well, then they also deserve the credit for me being stranded here in the middle of nowhere, unknown all alone by myself. Where are they when I need them the most? Remember the first time I had a swimming lesson when I was 9? If I had continued that, I would not have been in so much trouble. Curse that swimming instructor! That teacher who never taught me enough about the ocean! Those lies I told. Those heartbreaks I had.

It is funny, how the current now here and there, kept changing, I like most perhaps, began tunneling back to the past. The currents did not carry me there. I am going there at will, knowing how dangerous that also can be.

I sit back crying, the morning carrying on, my watch running timeless, tirelessly. I am hungry. Now I am slapped back into reality, the present like a simple shirt button dropped on the ground. I drop. And suddenly, as the morning sun rises, the tiniest of hope flickers within my heart and mind. I do not wish to die of hunger if not an animal or a wave. So now I will think of something to do. What should I do? I will think, agitatedly. Perhaps I should wait some more, a little more. I remember that while standing at the beach, several times in my life, I noticed how the waves were welcomed to the shore. Perhaps the waves will take me back there to the shore. Perhaps I do not need to do anything. I just left the shore barely a day ago. I mustn't be too far from where I left. I must be back some time.

How long? Not long. Soon. Hopeful.

I tremble in cold and hunger and the sun pricks a little bit of heat. I take it beneath the wide, blue-eyed sky and the dazzling sunny breeze. I look at the water below me, the boat still hovering. The water is heavy, salty, dirty even. I cannot see fish here. Perhaps it is not as deep, not as far. I see plastics. Nothing is clear. There is dirt. There is no life. Hours pass by and I wash my face in it. I open my pants and try to stand steady to release a trickle and relieve myself. Noon flows again and by the time it is noon, I make up my mind. I need to paddle where the waves are taking me.

I dread the feeling of moving away. Yet I have no choice. I do. I cannot spend another moment here. The adventure is over. I begin to paddle the boat with all my might, rumbling my skinny bony hands.