I’d Rather Drown Than Let Go
What’s Mine is Mine and I’ll Die to Protect It
Water skiing wasn’t something I’d done before. I was young, full of vitality, unbreakable, immortal, and looked damned good in a bikini. God, I miss my twenties. So, when my boyfriend asked me to go out on his boat with his friends to go water skiing, I was all in.
Here’s the thing. Everyone on the boat, and there were about six of us altogether, said I wouldn’t last 30 seconds. Money changed hands as they bet on my failure. But I’m a Leo, and I’ll be damned if they tell me what I am or am not capable of.
I listened carefully to the instructions. They said to get in the water and let my bottom sink, hugging my legs to my chest. Then, when the boat starts to pull, straighten out from the feet first, letting the skis lay themselves flat against the water, then slowly raise up the rest of my body, and let the boat pull me until I unfold and straighten. I followed those directions exactly, and sure enough, I was skimming the surface of Lake Mead while golden rays of sun glistened on my wind-whipped hair. Then, I began the countdown.
I have no choice but to stay up for 31 seconds, so they all lose their stupid bet, and I take home the prize. I will not fail.
I did make it to 31 (Go, me!). And then, the next thing I know, water is racing up my nose, slamming into my eyes, and assaulting my lungs.
I don’t even know what’s happening. I’m in a complete and utter panic. I’m drowning. Legitimately and literally drowning. I start to think of my children, my parents, my siblings, my boyfriend. As the liquid grave pulls me into its clutches, and as I prepare to leave the world, I hear the crowd on the boat screaming, “Let go! Let go! Let go!”
The world comes back into focus as I catapult from the water with the boat’s pull, thrashing and then getting pulled back into the watery abyss. “Let go!”
And then it registered. As scared as I was, I gripped tighter, clinging for life, to the handle tied to the boat. Ultimately, they stopped the boat so they’d stop pulling me, but it never registered in my brain that I should have let go of the rope. The more scared I felt, the tighter I held to that which threatened to take me out.
And such is life. When I’m scared, I cling. When I’m threatened, I hold on tighter. This is especially true with change, or when I’m faced with losing something I thought was mine.
When I think my life is supposed to go a certain way, when I get comfortable in my imagined version of reality, and then something threatens to take that reality away, I get pulled into the abyss. All I see is darkness and I find it hard to breathe. I’m so afraid of losing what I thought was meant to be, what’s mine, that I unwittingly harm myself trying to hold on to my perfect little illusion.
This was most noticeable when I was 30 and my firstborn was 14. I created a horrible life for my children at that stage (although they consider it their best years), and my son chose to leave. Chose to go live with his paternal grandparents, taking my heart and soul with him. I failed as a parent, and I lost my child.
The second time is when I was my grandmother’s sole caregiver while she was in hospice care. I imagined a picture-perfect farewell when her kids would all come and sit by her bedside, forgive her for her sins, and send her off in peace. Instead, the family ripped itself apart and I was accused of murder.
The third time it was true is when my ex-husband asked me to leave due to his addiction and his new dating app girlfriend that he met while we were still married. I can’t say I blame him. I wasn’t my best self, then.
There were others, breaks with reality, I mean, but it’s safer not to speak of them.
And now, I’m facing this same challenge as my middle son and grandkids prepare to leave, “abandoning” me in Nebraska alone. It’s not abandonment, but I have abandonment issues, so it’s a trigger for my “perfect world,” scenario. Their leaving threatens the image of my ideal reality, and I want to throw myself on the ground, wrap myself around their ankles, and scream, “Don’t go!”
Instead, I can hear the long-since-gone crew from the boat, ghosts from the past, screaming at me, “Let go!”
And I know they’re right. Letting go is the only thing I can do to allow them to move away peacefully and keep my sanity. I’m beyond the days where I’d be near mental hospitalization because I can’t cope.
So, instead of letting water (emotion) turn me inside out from the nostrils, punch me in the face, and suck the life from my lungs, I will let go of what I thought was a safety net and allow myself to float. And once I’ve calmed myself by floating on my back, I’ll flip over onto my belly and swim to shore, knowing I led myself to safety in the most graceful way possible.
