On the Brink of Death

Thinking about situations that have less than a 1/100th of a chance of happening occupies a lot of my time. Usually my imaginary situations involve death, an inescapable reality. Sometimes I just want to experience the “other side.” Death is a feared word, but I don’t fear death like everyone else. I’m excited by death’s mysteriousness. I want to know what I am missing. When I think in this way, I wish I had a smaller comfort zone. My fascination with death is more than just wanting answers. It is a fascination on anything and everything that has to do with death. Such things consist of how you die, or where, even when.

There is one instance in my life where I truly, without any doubt, thought I would die. It was a summer afternoon, at camp- the greatest place on earth, and it just so happened to be Color War time. Throughout the last couple days we had many competitions. My team won the blob challenge (basically when you jump on a blob in a lake and a person goes flying in the air from the other side). I participated in this challenge as the flying person and it scared me almost to the brink of death (literally). Okay, so I might be exaggerating, but when you feel yourself almost dying, I am pretty sure that gives you the right to exaggerate. I should probably tell how my almost-totally-unable-to-breath-flailing-in-the-water-death happened. Here I was on the beach, waiting for my team’s turn to go on the blob. Usually I would care less, seeing as I am a thrill seeker and basically have a never ending comfort zone. Anyways, the person jumped onto the blob and I went sailing into the air. No big deal, right? I canon balled into the lake. Again, no big deal. My ankle was wrapped up with the rope that held the blob in the water. BIG DEAL!

 I went thrashing around and was being pulled down farther and farther every time I struggled. I was unable to scream because the fall and splash from the blob had taken my breath away. To the average person on the beach it probably looked like I was treading water or swimming slowly. I was probably stuck there only for a minute. That was the most excruciating minute of my life though. There I was, a rope attached to my ankle, no breath, and struggling to stay above the water.  This was my death, a moment I had often imagined. Just as I thought I was crossing over to the “other side,” I realized my ankle was free and my head was above water. I took a huge breath, enjoying the feeling of air tumbling into my lungs. I calmed down, and in that instance I realized I was only 10 years old. I truly was not ready to die. I had my whole life ahead of me. I still needed to have my first boyfriend, my first heartbreak, my first everything basically. Now when I look back onto it I can see why my parents called me a drama queen, but more than that I see myself, a child, who was ready to face the end of her life when she hadn’t even started to live.

Now a days, I still find myself daydreaming of what ifs, and the “other side.” I find myself asking if I was put into a life or (more importantly) death situation, would I be content with doing all that I have already done and never doing more with my life? I don’t have an answer to that question, but I like to think that while I wait for death patiently and enjoy my life for now, my never ending comfort zone will allow me to say yes to that question, whether or not my ending comes in a day from now, three months from now, or even three decades from now.