Ocean

I've been so down lately. I can't even begin to explain how I've been feeling. Rattled. Anxious. Unhappy. Angry. Confused. Lost. Stressed. Bitter. I'm losing hope and ambition over everything. After a conversation with one of my advisors, I was nearly ready to quit school when he dashed my dreams with a "realist" point of view. Excuse me, I'm a realist, that doesn't mean you have to be a jerk.  I've been fighting a lot with him too. He won't touch me when he's awake, and when he sleeps he's too violent to go near. I feel withdrawn and cold. I've withdrawn so far into myself that I feel depressed, locked in. I don't want to make friends, I don't want to spend time with my family. I feel trapped and it scares the living shit right out of me. I want nothing more than to run free. Sounds kind of stupid, but I often picture a horse that's been in a barn too long. How it sways back and forth in it's stall, looking out over the gate to the outside. The longing for the need to stretch it's leg is felt with the tension in the air. The moment to feel wild to escape the overwhelming tame burrows from the eyes of the horse into the soul. I know how it feels. I want to run. I want to be left alone, but  I do not want to be alone when I shouldn't be.

I've known for sometime that I needed the ocean. It gives me that feeling, the cure to that ache that beats in my heart. I've been around the ocean for as long as I can remember. I share the memories of my brother, my cousins, my family with the ocean. It gives me peace while allowing this wild part to come out of me. I feel freedom, and standing there listening to the waves gives me the feel that I am running free. I often feel so alone, and the ocean's song just gives me something. I feel like I could die without it. Without the  freedom it gives me. Sometimes, it gives me the answers I need. Sometimes, it gives me what I need to feel...just to feel.

I wasn't exactly excited that I had the opprotunity to escape the family for 7 to 10 days. Mostly because it was brought on very short lived, and I had little time to decide. The thought of the ocean allowed me to freely agree, and for no other reason did I go. The person who brought me, I made them promise..just once. Just give me one day. My plead must have struck him somewhere, because the day after we arrived in Florida, my first time here, we left in the morning to head there and spent the whole day there. Clad in only my swim suit, I ran to the open shore. We had gone to a beach that was populated, but very sparsely. We had our own space, but more importantly I had my own space. The minute I heard the waves crashing against the shore, my heart burst. I grinned from ear to ear like a child and fled towards the embrace of the ocean. I didn't know what to expect, but when I flew into the water, it hugged me, greeted me, lapped my face like an old dog greeting it's owner. I greeted it with a full embrace and dove in. No fears. The water was warm. Unlike any ocean I have been in. It was magic and I waded out til I was neck deep in the water, leaping with the waves to stay afloat and swimming around on my back, and riding the waves in. I cried out to the sky, I cried to myself, I cried out to Allen. God, I miss him so much sometimes. This month is especially hard. I often wonder if he'd have kids, if he'd be in jail, if he'd of made something of himself. Mostly, I wonder how many more beach days we'd of had together. How many more fights, how many more times he'd make me mad, yet in no time at all we'd be kin to kin again. Somehow I feel him in the ocean. Call me crazy. Maybe because we spread his ashes over the ocean. Maybe because we spent our child hood watching the sunset on the ocean, sharing secrets and making plans for our future before we knew what the future really meant. Though I didn't speak outloud to him, I talked to him today. I let him know everything, although I'm sure he knows anyway. I confessed it all, cried about it. The ocean swept my tears away and lovingly embraced me. Then...I felt released.

I was running in the fields, free of entrapment. I felt my heart open and my spirit fly. I laughed hard, I swam hard, I bobbed and dove, ran in and out of the ocean like a child until my legs and arms were rubber (and my skin was redder than a lobster). I told my friend over and over thank you, but I think he could see the happiness in me. He sat back and watch me bask in my love for the ocean. We left only because the lifeguards closed down the beaches due to the lightning storm that had climbed out over the ocean later in the day. When we left I wasn't feeling like I was heart broken. I was happy.

Good god, I was happy.

I AM happy.