[9 min read] Under water. It’s really a perfect way to start my story. In a way, we all start with that feeling. Scratch that, let me start with something else.
My mom once told to me that my dad wasn’t the greatest significant other when they were young. Wow, I’m so shocked. She said to me, “You’re dad did everything in the book to me, except hit me.” She told me this when I was still a young teen living at home. I didn’t know how to interpret that at the time and I still don’t. I don’t care to try. But it’s always stuck with me. And I have to think, maybe she was a tad stressed out when she was pregnant with me. Maybe that’s why my mom looked seriously underweight in photos from that time. Her mom even commented on that and she hated my dad. Shit, maybe *thats* why I was born club-footed (something twice as common in boys – but it somehow avoided both of my brothers and only affected me).
I started out in this world in casts and braces, already a bunch of shit weighing me down. People looked at my mom, her baby with casts up to her tiny knees and judged her, hard. They assumed it was neglect or abuse related. So she hated taking me out in public at that time because of that unwarranted sense of shame. Sorry, mom? But luckily, my tiny legs grew straight and though I have trash joints and I may never be an Olympic sprinter, on a good day I’ll happily take a 9 min mile. Swimming though… that’s a different story.
When I was about to enter my 3rd year on this planet, I almost drowned. My dad was supposed to be watching me; I love that this story starts out that way. I was going up and down a kids slide in the children’s area of a community pool and he was catching me as I came down. Seems like a sweet scene, except I guess he looked away or got distracted and I went down and he just wasn’t there. What a perfect metaphor for the support he offered me in life. So, I didn’t float, I just sank. Maybe I tried, but that’s how silent drowning works. No flailing, no screaming. Just sinking and in less than a minute a tiny life is snuffed out. From across the pool, my mom with her mysterious maternal instinct, suddenly realized I was no longer in view. She yelled over to my dad, “Where’s Jessica?!”, panic in her voice. They both scanned the area and my dad noticed first. Nearby, I was at the bottom of the pool, not moving, like a smooth stone on the floor of a peaceful pond.
He dove down into the pool and grabbed me by the back of my swimsuit and yanked me back up. I hung there lifeless for, what I imagine was one panic-inducing moment, before finally returning to this earthly existence and coughing up water.
I don’t actually remember any of this. At least I don’t think I do…
The reason I know about it at all, is that mom is still pissed off about it 30+ years later. You can hear it in her voice when she tells the story and my dad actually looks ashamed if he’s nearby. He rarely apologizes for anything and the only time I’ve seen shame on his face was when I questioned him about my first dog. He gave Appleton away, but lied and told me he ran away (I was heartbroken). So, anger and shame are some strong reactions to have more than three decades later. It’s why I think it was actually a pretty close call to the end of my story. It’s crazy to think about that and on bad days, when my world is thick with depression, I often wish that my story did end that day.
I wonder if it would have changed my dad and made him a better person. I wonder if he would have cherished my brothers and my mother more fully. Maybe my brother wouldn’t be dead now. Honestly, I’d happily have made that trade. But that would have to be the trade-off, because my mom would have been eternally devastated.
Although, if there’s anything I’ve learned from my brother’s death, it’s that my mom can endure deep suffering with limited emotional support, and still manage to keep going, to have hope. She’s been on her own since she was 15, clinging to the back of a coyote (people smuggler), to make it into the states. If that wasn’t hard enough, she’s dealt with my dad’s temperament for a lifetime so I know she can take the equivalent of a gut-punch over and over, and somehow still manage to find joy in life. Yeap, she can still out-laugh a room with her blinding smile and warmth. I suppose I inherited a little bit of all that.
But when I was young, my mom would always embarrass the hell out of me when I’d go to the pool with my friends. She’d tell them I wasn’t a good swimmer so please keep an extra watchful eye on me. Right, because you never know when I’ll just sink into oblivion without so much as a peep. By then, I was in fact, a pretty average swimmer. Again, not winning any gold medals here, but it always pissed me off that she discounted my abilities based on something I had no recollection of – it was minor, but annoying. And likely, that’s why I grew up uncomfortable around water.
So, it makes me wonder. Is that why all the water dreams lately? As I dig down into the layers of past traumas I wonder if one of my earliest is trying to float to the surface. Recently, I had a nightmare where I drove off a bridge into the ocean in a desperate act to save lives by sacrificing my own. In that dream, everything went black after I hit the water, but then, like curtains rising for act II, the dream continued because I magically survived.
And last week, I had a dream that had no story at all. It was just a feeling of slowly sinking while I looked up at the surface of the water, my legs disappearing into a dark void. I felt like I should have been concerned and there was a tiny bit of that feeling. But more powerfully, is that after I accepted that no one was coming to help me, it was really quite peaceful. The light faded around me and I start to admire the ripples on the surface of the water and the way the dimming light gently flickered, shattering into tiny light droplets. My body, finally weightless, unencumbered, gently sinks and I’m content to let go.