Since my High school years, the years where everyone and everything was vulnerable and susceptible to failure, judgment, pain, and rejection it has always been a dream and interest of mine to learn how to swim. The relaxing feeling and confidence of submerging in a large array of water without fear or hesitation of drowning by such a necessity, I couldn’t imagine living without. Little did I know that my childish desire would haunt me till the days of my adulthood.
Foolish and naïve thinking patterns entered my mind: “How hard could it be to swim? I mean, I am taller than everyone else here. All I have to do is stand while in the 5 foot pool and the water would be at waist level”. These were the thoughts that constantly invaded my mind. The …show more content…
I had become something much more. I had matured in my engagement with one of nature’s cherished elements. I uncovered the attire of society’s proclaim “professional business”: a dress shirt, a pair of boots, and a belt locked away in a suit case. I found that walking took some degree of effort more than I remembered, but I made my way out into the dry world I once knew but I did not find it waiting outside for me like I expected. I felt like a man coming home from the war to find his lover, married, with two kids. The world thought less of me in the past years than I thought of it. The dirt roads I was accustomed to have been paved over with tar. Everyone used words I knew paired with meanings I did not. I stood insecure and defenseless before the world, and the world seemed not to notice. People were, like me, wearing clothes that did not exactly fit comfortably. Ironically enough, people seemed to do it out of preference. People rushed past me in hurried conversations about seemingly nothing. I wobbled out into God’s natural light and onto the uneven walkway laid before my house. Locomotives clattered and buzzed past me in the blink of an eye. Looking out at this world was like looking up at the stars: you realize how much of a tiny speck you really are. I found a seemly thrifty store within just a few steps. I could reach out and brush my fingertips across it like the intricate pinwheels of Picasso’s Starry Night while standing on my …show more content…
The same children, I encountered earlier had taken to gather on my warped wooden porch as I opened up about my experiences. I would talk about all sorts of things. Creation, love, the time before I drowned…but most often I found myself talking about drowning. I described it in so many ways as if wrapping my mouth around the right words would unlock some mystery. But what mystery, I did not know. When I talked to the children, a sudden feeling of self-realization became prominent. I had never experienced such a noteworthy understanding of my life, and I thought this might be it. I had mentally and emotionally matured. Though the children enjoyed my presence, some adults started noticing their fondness of my odd ways. I was unable to finish my tale because a father of two of the children sitting at my feet rushed up the wooden steps and snatched up his children like a
Foolish and naïve thinking patterns entered my mind: “How hard could it be to swim? I mean, I am taller than everyone else here. All I have to do is stand while in the 5 foot pool and the water would be at waist level”. These were the thoughts that constantly invaded my mind. The …show more content…
I had become something much more. I had matured in my engagement with one of nature’s cherished elements. I uncovered the attire of society’s proclaim “professional business”: a dress shirt, a pair of boots, and a belt locked away in a suit case. I found that walking took some degree of effort more than I remembered, but I made my way out into the dry world I once knew but I did not find it waiting outside for me like I expected. I felt like a man coming home from the war to find his lover, married, with two kids. The world thought less of me in the past years than I thought of it. The dirt roads I was accustomed to have been paved over with tar. Everyone used words I knew paired with meanings I did not. I stood insecure and defenseless before the world, and the world seemed not to notice. People were, like me, wearing clothes that did not exactly fit comfortably. Ironically enough, people seemed to do it out of preference. People rushed past me in hurried conversations about seemingly nothing. I wobbled out into God’s natural light and onto the uneven walkway laid before my house. Locomotives clattered and buzzed past me in the blink of an eye. Looking out at this world was like looking up at the stars: you realize how much of a tiny speck you really are. I found a seemly thrifty store within just a few steps. I could reach out and brush my fingertips across it like the intricate pinwheels of Picasso’s Starry Night while standing on my …show more content…
The same children, I encountered earlier had taken to gather on my warped wooden porch as I opened up about my experiences. I would talk about all sorts of things. Creation, love, the time before I drowned…but most often I found myself talking about drowning. I described it in so many ways as if wrapping my mouth around the right words would unlock some mystery. But what mystery, I did not know. When I talked to the children, a sudden feeling of self-realization became prominent. I had never experienced such a noteworthy understanding of my life, and I thought this might be it. I had mentally and emotionally matured. Though the children enjoyed my presence, some adults started noticing their fondness of my odd ways. I was unable to finish my tale because a father of two of the children sitting at my feet rushed up the wooden steps and snatched up his children like a