Fear Of Failure Part 3

For the record: This was written in cold blood. Straight from the muscle.



This is dedicated to myself for always being me.


I keep trying to convince myself that it wasn’t the oceans fault. It’s just water. It’s just nature. The water is not conscience. I’ve done a pretty horrible job.


The clouds approached quicker than usual. I was just walking on the beach right at the edge of the ocean. A gorgeous day was shaping up to be an equally gorgeous night. Happy families and beautiful girls were enjoying the picture perfect summer day at the beach. Waves were crashing left and right. You could smell the salt of the ocean. It actually felt good to just be completely alone at this moment.


I’ve always been the type of person to want everything or nothing. It’s all or nothing. When I was an infant I never crawled. One day I just stood up and started walking. I will never change that about myself.


In the distance I could see the clouds. They were very ominous. It was obvious a storm was approaching. I realized that no one was making any moves that would suggest leaving the beach. It started raining lightly and everyone stayed put and stayed happy. I kept walking south until I reached an area of the beach that was completely vacant. The rain started to pick up so I sat down on a rock and looked behind to see everyone scrambling to get into the hotel. After the rain got heavy, the thunder and lightning followed. Despite the small amount of danger, I felt no reason to leave the beach. The lightning streaked the iridescent sky.


The solitude of it all brought me back to a dinner conversation I’d had with a pretty young woman. Actually, it wasn’t the solitude that reminded me of her. It was the lightning. I remember discussing religion and a little bit of her past. My perspective on things have changed a lot since that night and I’d like to say that she had something to do with it. I’ve never really been an emotional person so I’ve kept a lot of things I’ve wanted to say to you to myself. It’s just easier that way and writing this part was hard enough. I’m not sure if you’ll understand this, but there are things I can’t explain or choose not to explain. I hope you mean what you say because I do. One day you will find the answers to your questions and that is a promise. There’s so much I don’t understand. I know this wasn’t what you expected but it’s just easier this way.


The storm got worse. I started walking into the water. As strong as the current was, it didn’t affect me. I just kept walking and walking. I reached a point in the ocean where the water got very deep. I started swimming. About 50 yards ahead of me I saw someone floating on a piece of driftwood. I remained calm. I felt completely in control of every muscle I moved. The situation was anything but calm, and I was everything but in control. I swam up to the piece of driftwood and saw an old man holding on for his life. The first words out of his mouth were, “You’re a gift from God.”


Sitting here now, I wish I could burn all the pages. I wish I could take every idea that I’ve ever had and set it on fire. I wish I could find every physical trace of this and burn it. There aren’t any papers. I never wrote any of it down. It’s better off that way.


I was just treading water in the Ocean. It was sort of a weird time to think about home, but I did. Trying to think of what to say here isn’t easy. I have one brother by blood. One of the few people that has known me for as long as I can remember and it’s going to be hard to leave that. Then there is my other brother. We ran around this place together for 17 years and I’m not willing to just let that type of friendship go. You will both always be my brothers forever.


I told the man that I wasn’t God, or Jesus, or a disciple, or a prophet, or a gift, or anything close to any of that. I was just some stupid kid swimming during a storm. He refused to believe me and I didn’t have time to argue. I told him everything was going to be okay and then asked him what happened. He told me he was on a large boat that was giving a tour of the local oceanic wildlife. He estimated that there were about 200 passengers and 25 employees floating in the Atlantic. I guess around halfway through the tour a storm capsized the boat. He described 75 foot waves pounding the starboard. The cabin collapsed, the keel snapped in half, and the hull eventually failed. He had no idea how he got to where he was or where any of the other passengers or crew were currently positioned.


It was never the events that I specifically remembered. I’ve always remembered the car rides when all of us were together. The four of us just riding around. It was always more fun when we didn’t have a destination. It was always more fun when we were jumping off of something, hoping there were no rocks. Those are things that I’m going to take with me. Even though we had no idea what was at the bottom, we all jumped. It would’ve been so much safer to let that moment pass us by, but we did that shit together. That’s all I have to say here.


As soon as I realized the severity of the situation I decided that floating on this piece of driftwood was not the best decision. I told the man to swim behind me and everything would be okay. He said he didn’t know how to swim, and I told him to trust me. Sure enough, he swam right behind me like he had been swimming his whole life. He didn’t know where the boat had capsized, but it was only common sense to follow the trail of debris. Along the way we found larger chunks of the boat floating in this storm. The closer we got, the more intense the storm became. The waves were massive and punishing. We swam harder. As we rose to the top of one of the enormous waves I could see in the distance a large mass of what used to be a boat. I stopped swimming and so did the old man. I asked him what the name of the boat was. He said, “como un león.” I didn’t know what that meant.


Fish sleep and swim at the same time. Imagine that.


We began to approach the incredible mass of wreckage. I realized that sprinkled throughout the chaos were the passengers and crew members of the ship. They were all holding on to random pieces that had once been part of a beautiful puzzle. It’s such a shame that things turned out this way. The shore was no longer in view, but for some reason I had a complete understanding of my positioning. I took no awkward steps and I did not falter in any of my movements. My thoughts were clear and far from cluttered. As the old man and I got close enough to communicate with the stranded strangers, I yelled for everyone to swim towards me. Suddenly, the water immediately surrounding the destroyed ship settled to an eerie calm. The storm raged on all around us, but we were safe.


Until you find yourself it is impossible to lose you. I’m sorry to anyone that thinks they know me, but I still don’t know myself. But there has been one thing I’ve learned. I used to stay awake at night and wonder why things turned out the way they did. I would spend hours just wondering when I was going to get what I deserve. When am I going to get what I deserve? When am I going to get what I want? I realize now how selfish those questions are. I’ve grown out of that shell. Those types of questions are for average people. The only question I have now is this: has anything I’ve done in my life made somebody else’s better? I don’t know.


Like I said, I tried to convince myself that it was just water. The moon and the tides are somehow aligned and maybe that caused it. I just want to believe that nothing spiritual happened. It was just water.


The people gathered around and started firing questions at me. I answered none of them. The old man told them that I was a gift from God. I told them that I was not. I explained to them that if they just swam with me that they would be safe. I could take them to the shore. I would not let them drown. Everything is going to be fine. Once they all agreed to follow me, we started swimming towards the shore. I knew which way to go. There were exactly 226 of us swimming together. After about 20 minutes of swimming, the shore became visible. Once we all made it onto the beach the sun came out and the storm disappeared. Everyone was safe. The grateful people started offering their appreciation for my act. Onlookers rushed over to offer their praise. Some of them were on their cell phones with emergency units, who were obviously on their way. Some people started to ask questions and others tried to take pictures. But I fielded no questions and politely declined all picture requests. I told them that I am nothing special, just some stupid kid in the right place at the right time.


I could have been a hero, but I just walked away. Just walk away. Just walk away.


Just walk away.


Hold the applause.



WW.



Goodbye.