I could’ve died tonight.
The rocks were jagged, and when I had shed my protective
shoes to try and brave them without aid; I failed miserably.
I had run out of our hotel room, angry with Mom, angry with
God and the world He created. There are
many things I feel, as a semi-functioning human being, but anger is typically
the worst. Because what follows other
than undeniable despair. It is the kind
that feels like a cave has been excavated in your heart and there will never be
anything that could possibly fill it. It
is the kind that makes you wish you didn’t exist.
Now, in the movies, the drama starts and fights ensue. Girl slams door on way out and grabs a heated
ride in the elevator. Said girl goes to
the sea and screams. Now this girl is flawless. Long blonde hair and a tall thin body that
almost seems too good to be true. And
who else than a handsome boy will appear, thus taking away all her anger and a
third of her self-respect. Cause what
guy gives but doesn’t take?
But here is the reality of the situation. I am an awkward girl. I burn staring at a lightbulb and I do
awkward things like press all the buttons in the elevator when there are people
other than myself inside. I do things to
ensue laughter (alongside loathing for myself) and wish that maybe, I could fit
easily into the back of a Jeep without looking like an oversized toddler trying
to fit into a shoebox.
And there will be
no handsome man to rescue a mess in what looks like a male plaid shirt.
The reality is this; I leave. I am so unbelievably livid that I can feel
the sunburns on my arms ignite with fire all over again. And I wish for it to consume me.
I pace in the elevator, thinking that my mother was right
when she said they were slow. But then I
push that thought away because I’m so fucking pissed at her and nothing she has
ever done is right.
I nearly sprint out the door that leads to Turtle Bay’s
private beach. And I thought I was
angry.
But the ocean is wailing.
The wind howls and slashes sideways at the palms trees that litter the
grounds. I see one bend and for a split
second, I pause. Maybe this could be a
bad idea. I feel something inside me
agree, but I try not to listen to the voices in my heart anymore. They always give me terrible advice.
I walk, angrily ripping at these thick green leaves that
have never felt the complete and unutterable wrath of a human being. I’m sure if they could, they would hide and
wait for the beast to subside. Ripping
of my shoes, I stumble into the sand.
And there it is, in its inconceivable entirety. The ocean.
And it roars at me. I
stare for a moment into the far depths, where I’m sure we flew over at one
point, thinking, and “I thought I was lonely.”
But here is the truth, for anyone who cares to read it; the ocean is far
more alone than you will ever be. How
could you love something when it consumes you?
We love it in the daytime.
Where the sun swoops down to heat the sand, making the cool water much
more susceptible to swimmers. We see the
things just below our feet and a few feet down if we are lucky.
It terrifies us at night.
It is this quaking unknown of sadness.
You can’t see anything, much less your own fear. But the ocean sees it all and wishes to take
it. Especially on a storm like
tonight. Waves crashed on the beach and
rose in terrible heights just beyond a rock I had sat on a day previous. It was like the world would end if I dare
went near. And I went just the same.
I sat for a moment and wrote on my phone:
“Only I can find misery in the most beautiful of places and
the most perfect of circumstances. It’s
like I can’t have anything good or else I’ll have hope for life again. So I destroy the good things and pretend the
bad is all I will ever get.”
I got up, wrapping the plaid shirt tighter around my torso. I thought that maybe Mom would’ve hit me
tonight and when I thought this, I thought, “Good.” Because maybe then I would have physical
evidence that she was a shitty mother and everyone could stop dancing around
the edges, pretending that nothing is wrong when everything is broken.
That was when the tears came. The ocean sprayed water at my feet and I
sobbed.
I guess I don’t truly know what the tears were for. Maybe self-pity or loathing. Maybe hatred and anger. But I can honestly say that I was tired. Like my soul and my heart were both so tired
of being hung out to dry, that they had fallen to the ground. And no one would bother to pick them up.
I walked barefoot in the beast. The sand curled up around my toes and I
looked at the scratches I had there, wondering if sand could heal wounds. If proved correct, I would pull my heart out
and offer it as a sacrifice. Tears
streamed down my face as I hated the ocean.
There were jagged rocks.
And I thought maybe if I hit them too hard, that someone would
worry about me. That maybe she wouldn’t
remember her anger, but remember that she’d loved me once. And maybe that once was now. So I took off my shoes.
It was simple at first.
All I wanted was to go sit and let my feet dangle off one of the many
shallow cliffs. I didn’t think of it as
anything particularly risky or terrifying.
But it was dark. I thought I
could face Darkness by myself, but I guess I was wrong.
I climbed a bit further out onto the rocks, wincing and
balancing terribly on the balls of my feet.
It was so painful that I thought for sure I would be bleeding. I’d come back into the hotel room, dripping
with red and all the anger would be forgotten, replaced with the love of a
mother. The kind of love I find in rare
moments when she is happy with her own circumstances first.
I tripped a bit, but balanced out. I looked at the cliff where I had wished to
sit, realizing too late that to sit would be a rough endeavor. But nonetheless, I sat. Are you sensing the pattern?
It hurt, oh too much.
I wrenched my shoes back onto my feet, wet and sandy and walked as fast
as I could back to the sand. I didn’t
realize until I had gotten back to safety that what I had done could have been
fatal. A tragedy of a sad girl who fell
amongst the rocks, only to be washed up on the shore the following
morning. A mangled piece of life that
seemed not to think about her own safety when she was in a fight with her
mother.
And I don’t know what I learned. I walked into the hotel and sat by the elevators,
the despair that follows anger slowly settling in. I made a decision.
Go and apologize one more time, Gentry. Buy yourself peace for at least the last four
days of your trip and grieve angrily when you get home. Because if you make a living hell for
yourself in the most beautiful of heavens, then you truly fell amongst the rocks.
