Amongst The Rocks

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.