We really missed the point, didn’t we? We’ve been getting warnings and lessons ever since we’ve learned a language and plopped ourselves down in front of a Disney movie, or delved into a book of fairy tales. Every single one of them has given us warnings about love and hate, despair and happiness, beauties and monsters. In the Lion King, Scar said ‘Be Prepared’. Prepared for what, we ask, but now I realize that the ‘what’ isn’t the point; just be prepared. So we missed it. And we’re still missing it. Music, movies, books, friends. They all show the dangers, the sorrows, the utter despair but we still throw ourselves endlessly, generation after generation, at the tidal wave love brings hoping that someday we’ll break through and get to whatever lies on the other side.
But there are some smart ones. Those are the people that realize that maybe we can ride the tidal wave, and they successfully do that, for a while. Sitting atop that tidal wave, with all the lost and forgotten bodies lying underneath, they see it. It’s right there, it’s just right there. Always getting closer.
But they always forget to heed the warnings. Even when they’re on bright billboards surrounded by blinking, blinding, neon lights. Imagine that, big signs that have plastered-on paper of a woman with blotched makeup from her tears. They get so wrapped up in it, hoping that they’re one of the lucky ones, that they forget about the sorrow that waits under the surface, waits for that time when you make one false move and slip and crash into the sea. And then you’re swallowed. They get all wrapped up in ‘we’ll make it’, ‘we can do it’, ‘we’re stronger than them’. We’re different.
Then you realize you’re not. Floating downwards, between the shafts of light that peek through the murky water, you realize that you’re just the same as all those sorry, dilapidated souls. But the most agonizing thing is that you can still see it, but now it’s too far. And you can see where you were, but you can’t go back, because now that’s too far too.
But it’s not that bad down here, really. It’s actually kind of peaceful. You don’t see the terror from below; all you see is people dropping through the surface like petals falling from a flower. A flower has to die, after all. It’s a new equilibrium, here. People are always coming, but people are leaving too. Sometimes I watch them. They stand up abruptly, and swim up to the surface, into the light. But me? I’m not ready. Not yet.
But I am comforted. You and I, we’re already halfway there.

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