This whole blog post is an analogy. Interpret it however you please. 

A month ago I was drowned in the ocean. My eyes were burned by the salt. My lungs were on fire as I gasped for air. My hair and limbs were whipped around in the water. My skin was stripped from the roughness of the current.  

Then the ocean spit me back out. I coughed out the water as the sand dug into my hands and knees. I rubbed at my eyes and the water drained from my ears. Once I caught my breath, I sat down on the sand and looked out at the ocean. 

It was night, and there was nothing surrounding me. Just me, the sand, the water, and the moon. And my head was empty. There were no past memories, no previous lives. I was a new person, born from the cleansing of the water and salt. It wasn’t scary; it was peaceful and benign. I focused on the sand, and the grainy feeling against my skin that felt new. I listened to the waves crash in front of me, and there was no place to disassociate back to. I looked up at the moon, and there were no past emotions clouding my eyes. I sat for longer with my vacuous thoughts. Just the ocean. Just the sand. Just the moon. And just me in this body.

Then I started to hear noise behind me. There was a faint, joyous tune and the chattering of people. I could smell sweet things, and see lights on a boardwalk. I stood up on my bare feet and decided to venture to this new place. 

I walked down the boardwalk, feet hitting the planks of wood. I followed people up to a stand where a man, large and tan with stress across his brow, gave me warm twisted bread with sweet powder scattered on top. The man smiled at me, and as I walked away his feeling of stress faded from relevance. I sat at a table and ate, I pleasured in the sweetness with sticky fingers, and when I was finished my joyous pleasure turned back to only a content stomach. I watched as children laughed while they chased each other through the tables, and I laughed along with them until the sound of their amusement left my ears. I kept walking, and saw two people snuggled close, staring deeply into each others eyes that carried their souls. They went up towards the sky and back down, around and around. They were the only two beings in the trancing world they were living in. Bolts of my heartbeat flowed through my limbs at the acknowledgement of their infatuation with each other. But as I walked away, my heart rate steadied and the love I witnessed became a dull understanding. I observed as a skinny boy in a blue jumpsuit tried to pick up the bag of waste that had toppled over, and labeled him as frustrated and miserable. 

I was able to derive all of the emotions and happenstances around me, but I wasn’t able to feel them. They reached the basic logic instilled in my brain, but didn’t reach the mundane beating of my heart. 

There was no lasting feeling of euphoria or sentiment.   

There was also no fear of the crowd, no nostalgia from the lights, no recurring memories of pain. 

I had just come from the sea. There was no past, no cache of moments that connected me to any emotions or feelings of who I was or what life beheld. 

I was in a new life. 

And while I couldn’t feel enough to understand where I came from, I had a feeling I didn’t want to; those past feelings were why I had drowned in the first place. 

So I spent my time on the boardwalk laughing with the children, taking sweet treats from the man, and riding the giant wheel with the lovers. I walked under the orange lights exploring everything new that there was to see, and the feet beneath me started to feel like my own again. 

After awhile the orange lights started to feel blinding, and the joyous tune became white noise drowned out by a song coming from behind me. I turned around to the darkness of the ocean that surrounded the boardwalk. The song kept calling, tugging at my arms and feet, filling my head and heart with the sound. I took one last look at the boardwalk and everything I had just experienced, and walked back along the sand to the place where the sea spit me out. I stood their for awhile. The song was louder now, still beckoning me, but peaceful enough to give me the time to consider. Deep down I knew what would happen — what I would feel — if I walked back into the water. 

Did I want to? I might not understand who I am, or what its like to feel things, but my head was quiet. I wasn’t drowning or gasping for air anymore. 

But could I sacrifice who I was for silence and detachment? 

I took a deep breath, and rendered to the calling water one step at a time. 

As my head went under and the water surrounded me, I panicked at the thought of sinking. I couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t feel the rawness of my throat screaming for help or the pain in my chest from the weight of the ocean. 

But my panic stopped when I was greeted by a younger version of me. She floated in front of me, her shorter and lighter hair flowing gently with the water. Her smile was of innocence, but her eyes filled with an understanding of what suffering was. She was surrounded by the same depth of water as me, and her expression told me I could survive in the water as she did. Slowly, my lungs expanded. The water soothed over my skin like it was apart of me — just like the girl in front of me was. 

She gestured for me to follow her as she started swimming away, so I did. As we moved through the ocean, I was reminded of the life I have lived up until this point. 

I swam past memories that have defined me and helped me understand what the purpose of life is. I swam past people who are substantial to me, and hold me steady when my world crumbles.. Along the way, past versions of me tagged along as the ocean carried us forward. This new person I’ve been reborn as gets reintroduced to all the other ages and eras of me, and I discover the similarities and connections I still have to all of them. 

I learn where my fear and pain has come from, but I also remember why the orange boardwalk lights feel like home and why the chill of the ocean soothes my nerves.  

I remember how a simple siren song can add another day to my life. 

I remember how people have turned on lights to see me in my darkness. 

I remember how strong younger iz’s have been, and how they always make it back to shore after drowning. 

I extend my arms to push myself up towards air. The distorted moonlight waves through the water as I get closer. My head bursts through the water, and my body naturally inhales the fresh air carrying the scent of the ocean. I see how far out I’ve swam, and the dim lights of the boardwalk far away. 

I start to laugh. And I start to cry. And I understand why both reactions happen. 

My breath steadies again, and I float on my back. My eyesight is filled with the moon and stars above me while my hearing is silenced by the water. I relinquish my control to the water, letting it take me where fate allows. 

Maybe I’ll wash back up to shore, and get to walk down the boardwalk once more. Maybe a shark will take a bite out of me, and I’ll sink to the ocean floor to lay with the coral. Or perhaps a ship will pick me up, and I’ll live the rest of my life at sea. 

Or I’ll float for a little while longer, reminiscing on how beautiful and big this life has been.