Post Forty: Swimming Lesson

I dive head first into life. Eyes squeezed shut. One giant gulp of oxygen held tightly in my lungs, rationed accordingly, never wasted except in times of great emotion. I do not see where I am headed or even where I am. I only feel the velvety caress of life as it washes through my hair, over my shoulders, sliding down my back and over my curves, tickling the backs of my knees, my heels, my toes. When I open my eyes, when I feel brave enough to face the waters I've plunged into, I cannot see clearly my setting. I do not know what to make of it. The others who are swimming along side are wobbly images I've edited in my mind, to fit better my own sordid dreams. When they're close enough for me to see more clearly, I shudder from the truth and clamp my eyelids over my pupils. It's much easier to feel than it is to see. In the self-imposed darkness, I know not where I am headed. I only have theories. I might hit the bottom if I keep going, never stopping to check my route, my direction, my passing landmarks. I might end right back at the beginning, the surface, lost, alone, confused, but full of fresh, new, sweet air ready to be inhaled and taken for a trip. I may meet dangers. I may encounter enormous expanses of emptiness. I depend on my sense of touch for clarity, but it can only show me so much. I am afraid of what I might see, I am afraid of the way the saltiness of life will feel on my baby blues. I resist seeing, but I sink ever so slowly into feeling. All the while, behind my lids, my brain is racing. Coveting the air leaving my lips, bubbling to the surface, longing to be free of the weight of my surroundings. It whispers my doubts to me, only loud enough for me to barely hear in the whooshing of passing days, but ever existent, ever pressing. Behind my visage, scenes are played out and replayed, analyzed, dreamt up, imagined, edited, discarded. My thoughts are unable to be unseen to only me. But my position in this murky sea of humidity and sky is visible to all but me, leaving me with one inquiry I am unable to find an answer to. No, not where am I. I am in life. But who, WHO, am I? And is it me who determines this, or the unsteady, blurry corporeal beings around me? I'm running out of air, my ability to concentrate weakens, I must make a move and fast. Either I act and breathe, or I submit and founder. The current may continue to move me, but in order to survive, I must decide.