THIS IS US
The First Time I Saw The Ocean, I Almost Drowned
On fear and friendship
The first time I saw the ocean, I almost drowned. Twenty-one and high off the fact that I was breathing in ocean breezes for the first time. My friend had warned me not to go past a certain point. Warned that it was too far away to swim back without utterly fatiguing myself. The hypnosis of the waves and the sun on my back lured me. Transformed me back into that reckless eight-year-old whose doctors said would never walk or ride a bike or talk. Told my parents I would never have the necessary inner balance. Today, I ride my bike constantly and will ramble your ear off in a minute when I’m excited. It only cost me a perpetually bruised left leg, one headfirst slam into a wall, and the wish to be heard.
“Almost every woman I have ever met has a secret belief that she is just on the edge of madness, that there is some deep, crazy part within her, that she must be on guard constantly against ‘losing control’ — of her temper, of her appetite, of her sexuality, of her feelings, of her ambition, of her secret fantasies, of her mind.”-Elana…
