It has occured to me that I may be ready.
Ready to let go.
A few years ago, I was introduced to the idea that I could, that I had an obligation to embrace, my anger; my resintment; my fear.  I was given permission to feel these emotions, when for so long I thought that to be good was to not feel these emotions; give forgiveness in place of the acknowlegement of my pain.  So I did.  And with a vengance did I! It seems that I felt anger only at first, I lived anger, I embraced anger.  I became anger... it was the only emotion I had. It was the only emotion that I could connect with. I would pant back and forth between this anger and resentment, and these emotions have guided my choices and my life for the past few years.  Soon a third, more core emotion surfaced... that one called fear. I was afraid to let go of this new found freedom. Freedom to play and frolic about within a category of emotions that were not granted to me before, off limites to me before now, never afforded to me before, or even approvable to me before a few years ago.  It was my understanding, and I came to this understand through many different types of teachers, that to live in any form of acknoledgement of pain, which would then lead to fear, which leads to self preservation, which leads to anger and resentment, was a road not to be traveled by thos who wish to be good, approved, or accepted. What I didnt know was that to embrace this path of emtional dedication means that one will in fact continue past those first four areas of emotion on to other emotions. what I didn't know was that if you allow any emotion to flood over your life moment, the flooding pattern will push you through a continum past those first emotional reactions. The very thing I was afraid to be, taught not to be, warned against becoming; that is a life commited to and consumed by botterness, became an inevitable life moment because of my making the decision to control emotion rather than feel it, live it, experience it, swim in it-- even be willing to drown in it.  For it was at the moment that I allowed myself to face fear of drowning that I sank.  It was also then, that as I began to sink, that I became rescued.  I became aware of my inability to retrieve my own self from the sea of overwhelming pain.  It was at this awareness that I called out for help.  I was at the call for help that I found help, and began finding my way to safety.  Safety is what I wanted, needed all along. Not knowing that in order to arrive at safety, I would have to nearly die first.

I thought I had died. I mean, that is what I had chosen to do.  Not out of hast, although it had to be a quick choice as I hadn't much time to do so, but I was brave and chose to sacrifice my life for to save a life that was worth reliving... and somehow I have washed up onto a beach.  Trying to catch my breath I cough repeatedly.  Because my lungs are full of the ocean's sea, I am gasping for air, and I am not very dure yet whether I am actually alive, saved, and safe.  But I think so. Clearing my lungs, and trying to arrive any sense of barrings, I think it best if I get myself up shore a bit further away from the ocean's sea, up beach toward the away from the danger.  So with a tenacious crawl, and a final heave I fling myself onto my backside, falling backward.  There I lay in the sand, the waves ease up the beach, where I am still close enough to feel the leftover cascade kiss my feet, but in no ways in danger of the tide anymore.  I am safely ashore.  Out of the oceans's sea, emerged from the depth of bitters, at least for now... but,yes, I am ashore, rescued and safely arrived through them. And this is how I know I must be ready. For it I were not ready, I am sure that I would still be a prision of the ocean's sea, in the depths of bitters, with my lungs full of bitter fluids.  I've been there, somehow emerged and alive through it, and for now I am glad to be ashore...

I flee to the forest near by. At least in thought, because though I can see the massive forest in view, I've only enough strength to hearl myself a few short feet toward it.  So I guess I will rest here; maybe I need to reflect on what all has just occured anyway...

As I lay here I can't be sure that I am not still somewhat afraid. Oh yes, because the ocean's sea that I refer to as the danger wasn't all that dangerous in the beginning. I was invited to a playdate, to come and frolic in the ocean one day. This ocean was a beautiful ocean, the most pretty of all the oceans. Reflective of sunlight as the wind blew sparkling waves of an endless spectrum of tourquoise and blue... It was tantalizingly appealing to jump in. And jump in is exactly what I did.  I swam a while. When I tired, I would swim back to shore.  On another day, the ocean would call to me, and I would feel the urge for a swim, and there I'd go... back to the ocean for a dip. This happend for months on end.  The ocean and I became one and the same, I was like a fish- and anytime I was away from the ocean, I longed to return.  Most everyday, for hours I swam, and froliced, and lay upon the beach. One day, I swam for a very long period of time and became to tired to swim home, and so I turned over on my back and floated a while. Oh, I'll rest, I thought to myself, relax and regain the strength to swim back. How relaxing it was. Just me, the ocean holding me up, the tide gently splashing waves up and over my ears and up on my eyes, though never completely over my face.  And I would look up to the sky.  I was in my most ultimate happy place.  There is a kind of quietness and thinking that occurs when your ears plug with the floating about of waters, a pleasant aloneness... but God was there too.  I could sense him smiling on me, maybe through the sun that shined a warmth on the esposed parts of my face as I floated there.  My breathing slowed, my mouth parcially open atested to the saltiness of the ocean, and giggled to myself, noting to relax my jaw, keep my mouth open if I wanted, but lick the ocean wettness of my lips no more.  Completely me and one with the ocean drifted.  Before I knew anything else I was asleep.  I had come to relax so deeply that I had fallen asleep here in this beautiful quiet and friendly ocean.

At some point I attained conscientiousness of a sequence of events.  A sort of movie picture featuring a young girl child, and her day to day.  I watched this film of sorts, a bit unsure of my surroundings, hadn't I been swimming today? Had I swam back to shore, and walked home? Was I in my bedroom in my bed? I was dreaming, I do believe that, but I had not remembered at all awaking from the nap I had slipped into on the ocean earlier, nor do I recall swimming ashore, nor do I remember walking home.  Ah well, it didn't matter at the moment, because this film of sorts, what seems to be a sort of playback of some young girl's childhood, was far more interesting.  There were imaginative and vivid scenes being displayed on screen of my inner eyelids.  I must be dreaming, here still on the ocean, I thought, I could see and feel the sunlight's warmth on the outer skin of my eyelids.  The drama began its layout. The storylines highlighted partiular things that had happend, some followed a sort of timeline it seemed, other occurances seemed to jump from time to time.  One scene was synched with another where the young girl wasn't very young at all, she had on the same clothing and looked very much the same, yet older, then all at once the scene pulled back to the younger version of the girl.  And how the zoom of a scene would come in ever so close to her face. She was beautiful.  Her hair was plaited into the most glorious crown of cornrows.  They dangled down a little bit past her ears barely to touch her neck, and at the ends of each braid there were attatched several white flower shaped beads that dangled and chimed a bland song, a sound you'd get if you took two smooth stones and clapped them against each other.  Whenever she ran, jumped, or turned her head in hurry, those beads sang and clapped against each other.  Eagerly watching this film of sorts, this playback, a scene continued and there the young girl's mother, I assume, called for her.  She turned her head in a hurry and a few of those beaded strands of braids charged for her face, slapping her right in the eye.  In reflex she clinched her eyes shut while still attempting to run toward the direction of the call.  Yelling back "comin" she tripped- twas such a clumsy thing to watch as she fell over the tree stump there behind her.  She managed to catch her fall with both knees forced a top the stump, and both hands forced down onto a pile pebbles. These pebbles were placed around the tree stump to keep grass and weeds from crowding around the tree stump, that would then make it a comeplete eye sore in the yard. It was a beatification technique. A solution. One of the young girl's father's famous solutions.  He was a fixer.  I somehow know the story of that tree stump- the young girl's father had the tree cut down after it had been struck by lightening during a storm.  A large section of that tree detached when lightening struck it that evening, and one of the branches came crashing down on the dormer part of the roof and window of their home.  That dormer was never replaced, in fact that dormer window was the part of the young girl's bedroom.  The damaged dormer was demoed, and made into a flattened roof, and where the girl's bedroom used to have a window, and an extra four feet or so allotted by the dormer, now was closed off, brought further into the bedroom, reframed, and dry-walled flush and square. There was talk had, something about there not being enough insurance money to re-build the dormer and clean up the tree... this solution was cheaper.  It was cheaper to have the tree cut down rather than fully eradicated, and it was cheaper to make the dormer a flush square room with no window then rebuild it. It is what was the best thing to do. Her father knew what was best, and he know about insurance, and he knew a lot of guys who could fix anything for cheap.  The young girl and her mom re-arranged her bed away from that new wall and put her dresser there.  The perfect place for a furniture piece that needed a flush wall to be juxtaposed to, and the perfect place to move her bed away from.  Thank heavens the young girl, afraid of the lightening storm, had crept into the hallway to sleep outside her parents bedroom that night, her bed being just under that dormer window, and just where that tree branch had come crashing in. I am not very sure how I came to know all this about that ole tree stump, and the young girl's bedroom.  I'll bet it's like one of those times when, you know, like de-ja-vu, you just have a strong feeling that you know something about someone? Somehow?


  And as I dreamed I felt these reactions. It was as if I was reliving it all. Reliving my own beginnings, but feeling them for the first time.  Why had I not felt this before, how could I have lived this at one time and not felt this way then? It was very strange, strange in the way that dreams are you know.  Displacing, and unsure.  In fact I came to wonder if it was even me that was the feature character in this dream.  But it was me.  The details were to familiar, the smells were to recognizable.  I had been there in those scenes before, in that kitchen, on that couch, in the bed.  I was me.  I knew that much for sure.  And once I realized that I couldn't pretend that I wasnt the main character in this playback, the relaxed state I had been in change very quickly to panic.  I was terrified, because I hadn't known before how to live through that trauma, and here I was again, living it. There was no waking up from this nap, what was to be a lesuire pleaure filled afternoon of swimming in beauty of an ocean, became a rage of dnagerous tides. The tide carried me, further and further away from shore, and away from home. The stronger the tide became, the angrier I became, and when I would become more angry I became more aware of the bleak chances of waking up.  I found myself in a state of complete awareness, and this awareness was so complex and multifacited.  I understood that I was asleep, yet I felt fully awake.  I seemed to have full control over how I wanted to feel and react as the scenes of playbacks scrolled by, yet I knew that I had not enough control over what was happening to even awaken myself.  And in the midst of all that I could sense that God was smiling down on me, somehow directing this whole production. A God that I did know was fully love and nothing elese, but was still allowing this danger to be upon me. This was happening.  I was in full on danger, being washed here and there accross the ocean, as a corpse let out to sea by pirates. And it became this way truly. As if pirates had roped me and schackled my arms and feet, I began to sink. Relaxing was no more- it had been so long now since I knew what it meant to relax against the waves.  I was in panic mode.  I was in full on fear.  This sea emotion had taken over me, yet everything in me was saying let it happen. Let it happen? Let myself drown? Just, die? Here and now, in this ocean, in this sea, this was it? I was drawn to this potientally freeing place to play and swim and frolic, tricked into given way to the tide, and now I will die here?  This was my state of mind you see, because I was not waking up- yet I was fully aware that I had become somehow shackeled and roped.  I was fully aware that I was sinking beneath the air access into the depths of this ocean and sea, yet I was unable to save myself- and strangly, though afraid, I wanted to stay. As my life trauma played back for me to watch, I felt empowered. Purposed. I was intent on saving that girl, the maincharcter of my playback.  She had no hero. Someone, maybe the director, had forgotten to cast the hero. So I had to find a way into the film. Fully aware that I was roped and shacked and drowning wasn't so bad now, now that I had purpose.  I had a plan... the plan was to drown. To die, here, now. Right now- right at this scene, because maybe this would be the gateway into the playback.  And I needed in.  I was due to arrive in the script.  So I gave in to the danger of the sea and ocean.  I took control, or so I thought,  And now you will see the danger. Now you will see how plainly out of control I was. Here I thought that I was fully aware and in control, but there I was in roped! Shackled! Drowning! And willing to drown now! Willing to die, because I became fully aware that this must have been my purpose.  The reason I came to know about this sea at all must have been for to go back in time and save my tramatized self. I thought, it couldn't be an inplausible notion, die now, live again... I am always open to the possibility of miricales and the relm of the unknown. It was possible. So I decided to die. Right there, in the ocean and sea. God had other plans.  

So here I am. Not in the sea any longer.