I gasped for air and inhaled a deep dark corner of the ocean. One second I was bouncing, buoyant, as if I was on the moon and without gravity, and the next I was impaled by the sharp rush of water like my life had been hooked and was being reeled in, towards Davey Jones Locker, perhaps, but away from my body. One second - neon and technicolor. The next - a heavy black that sat on me, crushing my heart - heavier than the weight of an endearing man laying across my body, heavier than the stress and burdens of work, heavier than hearing the news of someone I love dying, heavier than all of it put together because the life dying was my own. I collapsed. And I sank even deeper within myself, incommunicado.
Screaming, I woke up.
I am not surprised in the least that I am dreaming of the fragility of deep sea diving. It is one of my favorite symbols in movies, like in the Graduate and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: trapped, isolated with thoughts, under the weight of the world and unbearable expectations, it's an image I've innately understood since I left my parents' house at 18. The only irony is that I've been waking up screaming my whole life.
My reality, made up of Hollywood symbolism, is literally overwhelming. And the other idioms that fit the bill... keep 'em coming:
- Hang in there
- Hanging by a thread
- Keep your head above water
- The light at the end of the tunnel
- Don't burst my bubble
- Between the devil and the deep blue sea
- Still waters run deep
- Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink
- With bated breath
- It's all or nothing
J'ai vingt-cinq ans. Pas beaucoup. C'est tot pour aller de tellement a rien.
But the siege of deep water happens more often than I'd like.
There are times, like this, that I stop and wonder if I have a seriously dysfunctional personality. Perhaps I'm borderline. Perhaps I'm rigid and chronically depressed. (But don't use this series of blog entries as a judge of this character.) Or maybe saying I'm seriously flawed is just another way to illustrate my dramatic, overly emotional perception of the norm. Now that that's said, the truth is kind of obvious, but still, I'm facing a problem, whether it's completely within me, completely in the cards I've been dealt, or a little of each...
left or right, right or wrong, black or white, high or low, good or bad, single or in love, popular or alone, starving or full, bored or overwhelmed, clean and spotless or dirty and dishevelled, with you or without you, it's always everything or nothing.
A close friend hasn't spoken to me in weeks and I believe it's with grave intention, and it's solely my own problem. She stopped speaking to me when I hung up on her. Take that as you will, but I was hurt, and it wasn't the first time feeling that way with her. Hurt me once, shame on you; but hurt me twice and you know the rest. I can't help but initiate my fight or flight response. I'm eager to survive after all, there's only that thin hose of life to suck on and it's hard to fight for everything under the circumstances. Then again, choosing flight is a double edged sword when you're already under water. I just sink some more.
Online dating has certainly not helped my condition. It's a cyber sea of faces and profiles and the only way to swim through it all is to be harsh, judgemental, and quick witted. Click a pic and it's a simple yes or no. Any man who's caught in that gray fuzzy area of attraction would have to blow my mind in the first two sentences of his puzzled together persona, but even then, I'll always know he was just a 'maybe.' I agree this approach to romance is obscene and unfair. I couldn't dare pretend otherwise. When it works, though, boy it works - I won't have to buy groceries for weeks because all my meals are eaten out on the town. When it doesn't work, it fails me miserably - it's $30 wasted on ugly pictures, and I know... I just know... they're all thinking the same of me. And even if it wasn't about the money or the fact I've resigned to dating internet profiles, it's still a game of picking the petals off flowers: He loves me; he loves me not. The gray area is faint and looks more like unfortunate white nothingness than vibrant, red hot love. Doom and gloom.
I am twenty five. Not old. It's too early to go from so much to nothing.
But I'm under siege. I'm trying to survive under an ocean of self-induced pressure. Gotta be somebody, and I mean, I've really got to BE somebody. I don't exactly know why, but I could blame my upbringing. I could blame society for deciding nonprofit work was not as significant or valuable as "engineer," "doctor," or "oceanographer." It's either all that, or it's just me. It's me thinking like a beatnik, trying to make a story of my life, trying to figure out all the answers to life on my own before due time. I decided to write a memoir at 22. All or nothing makes for epic tales, unless you get more nothing than everything, and that's how things seem to be. For now.
I don't want to sink in this life, and I don't always want to escape situations in this world I've just begun to create for myself. Rather than let the pressure of being a 20 something burst my bubble, I vow to keep my head above water... when I can... and I vow to add idioms ad nauseam. I vow, like the graduate, to just float along for a while and see how it goes. I'm putting on my rose colored glasses and seeing shades of gray. I still don't know what the deal is with my friend or dating or even my career, but I can take comfort in knowing that gray is my favorite color, and with it, I'm breathing easy.
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