on swimming, December 2005

I’m not certain of anything anymore. I’m a teenage lover sitting on a bed, skin tingling, scared to death but unable to stop, not having the slightest idea of how anything works. Until now life was so simple. I was a child, a child living in a world where everything was beautiful and was made up of baseball and summer crushes and black Reebok Pumps. Life is more complicated than that now, and during honest moments I admit that I can’t handle my life. It’s a rip tide. I can feel it tightening its grip on my waist and pulling me out to sea. It’s impossible to fight.

     I was laying on a couch listening to music in a house I just moved into downtown. One of my roommates, Ed, was in another room watching an episode of “Scrubs”. Joe was gone. His new girlfriend. I felt like I had to get out of there. Away from it all. Away from my friends that I didn’t even know six months ago, away from my apartment that was not my house, from my life that I still couldn’t believe was my life. I wanted to drive – to Savannah, to Charlotte, to some town I’ve never heard of – it didn’t really matter. As long as I almost ran out of gas.

     I rolled the windows down and shuffled the songs on my ipod. I cried. I cried because it was too hard to cry around someone else. Too hard for me and too hard for them. I was crying because I missed my life. I was crying because I was scared. I was scared to death that my life would be all downhill from here. I’m nowhere near as brave as I pretend.

     I started to scream, cursing at the top of my lungs. “Fuck you!” I yelled, slamming my wrists on the steering wheel. I didn’t even know who I was cursing. Was it Caroline? You lied to me. We were a team. We were one. You did the only thing that was the only thing that would destroy me. And I let it happen because I was naive. For two years I was ignorant. You hurt me so much and I loved you so much.

Was it Nate? I thought you were my brother! Why weren’t you there? Why did I always have to be the one to call even though I needed someone to call me, to say ‘you matter to me’, to say ‘I was thinking about you just now.’? I needed you to come over… to kidnap me even if I didn’t want to leave the house… to take me out for a movie or a game… to start a bar fight just so we could punch and be punched, just so I could have human contact.

Was it Mike? I let you be my father. My counselor. And one week after I found out about the affair you were saying ‘You need to start over. Quit mourning. Get a new job. You offered advice but never a hug, which is all a father really needs to do. You never even said ‘I’m sorry you have to go through this.’ Why was that so hard for you to say? Why was an embrace so impossible for you to give?

Is it Adam or Christen or Stacey or Catherine?  You went along with them. You could have made a difference. You said I was the best leader you had ever had. That I was your friend. That I was your family. Your church! I didn’t change. My circumstances did. Where were you?

I didn’t know who it was I was cursing while I crossed over the South Carolina border. Maybe it was me. It’s your fault! You let them hurt you. You could have stopped it all by refusing to care about any of them. You could have built a shell, a shield, a moat around your life. But you didn’t, and you are to blame.

Good God, what happened? Everything was so beautiful. Everything was so, so beautiful and so perfect and we were all sitting on the porch looking down on the street below and the whole world was made of music, the palm tree was the conductor and we were laughing and her face was glowing, always glowing, and it was late so I went to get more coffee and I walked past the computer and it was on,  there was a message she wrote to him and it said “I miss you. I’m thinking about you I love you, I really do” and I died that night and everything went black all the music faded and I could see me dying, watching myself disappear the world was over now it’s over everythingwassosobeautiful Good God what happened everything was soso beautiful why didn’t I die that night I should have known but I didn’t know and now I know and it kills me inside why doesn’t it kill me outside I shouldhaveknownbut I didn’t know I didn’t know why didn’t I know I shouldhaveknownbutIdidn’tknowandnowIknowandIhatethisit hurtssomuch.

Every thought was a continuation of the past, a reliving of coming to terms, an acceptance of cruel reality: this was now my life. A carousel of questions was circling my brain.

What if? What if she had confessed instead of I had discovered? What if we had never left Charleston at all? What if I drove to her house right now?

“Let’s pretend this was all just a dream. We can move to Denver, or Nebraska, or Italy. We can begin again,” I could say.

What if my high school history professor was right? “Life sucks, then you die.”

What. If. I. Drive. This. Motherfucking. Car. Off. This. Motherfucking. Road. And. Into. That. Beautiful. Beautiful. River.?

I hit the brakes hard and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. My face was drenched with my tears.

Now. Now. This has to stop now. I don’t deserve any of this.

I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to hurt and not feeling anything anymore would be the best feeling imaginable. I cried until there was nothing left inside.

Oh my God, this hurts so much! My hands were gripping the steering wheel as if it was the last thing holding me back from ending it all. I looked through blurry eyes into the distance, into the space just past the furthest reach of my headlights, into nothing.

That’s where I want to be.

It would be so easy to get there. I just had to drive into the river, and not get out. Just the thought of the river seemed so… so peaceful. The engine was running, the river was there, my ipod was playing.

My ipod was playing.

I could hear the chorus coming through the speakers, soft, distant.

“Don’t give up now

A break in the clouds,”

     Are you kidding me? Fifteen hundred songs to choose from and it had to pick this one? I don’t want to hear this song right now.

“We could be found

Rescue is coming

Rescue is coming

Rescue is coming

Rescue is coming.”

     I squeezed my eyes shut. The notes were swimming around me. I wanted to skip to the next song; then everything would be ok. Then I could get on with it. The song was like a car wreck on the other side of the freeway. An eighteen-wheeler and a Mazda. The truck had turned over and the Mazda was on fire. Bodies were under sheets.

     I couldn’t quit listening. I don’t need to hear this right now. I couldn’t get away from it.

     “God, I’m so scared.”

     “Don’t give up now.”

     “You don’t understand how much this hurts.”

     “I do.”

     “I didn’t deserve this.”

     “You’re not perfect.”

     “I didn’t say I was. But I didn’t deserve this, any of this. I didn’t deserve to be fired. I didn’t deserve divorce.”

     “I know.”

     “Everyone is gone. Everyone, God. Do you understand that? Not just Caroline. Everyone. Everything. My friends. My church. My job. My trust. Everything. Everyone. Someone hit a switch and everything is different. Everything is wrong.”

     “Rescue is coming.”

     “When? Now? That’s what I thought. Damnit! I don’t need rescue. I’m fine. I’m alone and fine and dying.”

     “Don’t give up now.”

     I was trembling. I put the song on repeat. I laid my seat back and I swam. I swam through chords and pain and hope and hurt and I didn’t know what to do next what do I do now? what do I do? so I just lay there with my eyes closed and I breathed. I’m breathing. I can breathe. I’m scared but I’m breathing, I can breathe, I can breathe.