Oceanic Cleansing

By the time I was 20 I had already been living on my own for years. During all that time my feet barely touched the ground. I functioned on the tenet that I could die at any moment, and I knew my body would never be as spry as it was, so why not live hard? There may have been underlying schemas in direct correlation to childhood trauma and undiagnosed neurodivergence, but at my core, I know I was happiest when life crumbled at my feet and I was free to roam as I chose. So, when I found out my girlfriend had been sleeping with the bass player of her band, I performed the obligatory freak-out breakup— I threw plates, cancelled the electric and internet, and brought random people home for her to find in our bed. Underneath the ache of betrayal lay a current of relief. I could quit my job and stop playing house with someone I’d rather not be tethered to like a maypole. I yearned for the life of a vagabond. I did love her, that part was real. The hurt was visceral. I didn’t know how to deal with complex emotions, so I acted rashly; within a month I was packed into the back of a 1999 Toyota Camry with two strangers. The owner of the car needed cash for gas to get home to Halifax, and I had just gotten my first welfare cheque after quitting my job. It felt like divine timing. I stuffed a garbage bag to the brim with dirty laundry but wore the same jeans and t-shirt, no bra, the entire trip. It was hot, we were high or drunk or both the entire time. Eventually, we were there.

I had no reference point, no idea what to expect. The internet wasn’t in our palms yet—our minds were still capable of unmitigated novelty. The sun was just coming up. We had driven all night after accepting pure speed from a gay man in Old Quebec City. An anxious despair was already tugging at my throat; the come down. It was placated by a bottle of bourbon and the swell of a frothy Atlantic Ocean. We stood in a row on Lawrencetown Beach, passing the bottle between us, drenched in silent awe. The water was blue, that was my grand revelation, and cold, and remarkably salty. It was a biome apart from the warm green lakes I was accustomed to. I was the first one to move, I slid my jeans off and tossed them into the mango-sized rocks scattered over the beach. Without hesitation I waded into the cool waves. The shock to my hypothalamus was instant. But I didn’t stop. Something compelled me to keep moving, to let it consume me. The salt gently cradled my body. The cold vasoconstricted blood vessels, generating a comfortable numb in my head. My limbs extended and retracted to the rhythm of the current, the push and pull and push and pull—until I forgot who I was. That feeling was more addictive than any stimulant or brown liquor. The deeper I went, the more I transcended into a realm of ego-death; a transparent eyeball, becoming one with nature. What felt like an eternity in that deep blue bliss had only been a few moments. The shrill voice of the driver, the local, cut through the silence. I couldn’t understand what she was saying at first, apart from my name, and I had no urge to decipher her message. I was annoyed that she didn’t follow me in, that she wasn’t on the same trip as me. It was her idea to come here, as an introduction to the area, so why not partake? I realized too late that my toes could no longer reach the sandy seabed, and a word caught on the wind: “deep!”

Oceanic gravity consumed me. I kicked my feet like a toddler in a bathtub. The waves weren’t crashing, they were a slow-dragging force, pulling me further away from the safety of land. I remembered sardonically that my sister had told me not to go into the ocean, that she had a dream about me in a clear body bag, hair wet, strewn across a rocky beach. I wish I could say what I felt was pure terror; that there was no part of me that was exulted by the prospect of the ultimate freedom. My body was shocked into the physiological stress of imminent death—my pupils dilated, blood pounded against the walls of my carotid artery, my senses were edge-bright and sharp. And yet, my mind was already in the great beyond. I imagined it would be peaceful, floating off with the salt deposits into a dewy sunrise. The surface, although in constant motion, was calm and soft. I brushed it gently with my palms as I held my head above the swell. Sunbeams refracted into golden whites and cool cyan and glittery flecks of silver. A wave trough caught a tiny pulsating jellyfish. I observed her with distinct admiration; I hadn’t met a jellyfish before. What a gift to be caught in the same surge as a creature so perfectly curated, like a gleaming gem in a display case. Like me, she was at the mercy of her environment, although she was much better suited for it. As the wave grew, she swirled above me, then to my surprise it crested and crashed, throwing us into a tizzy of underwater dancing. My legs tucked into my torso mechanically as I spun, almost as if I were doing it on purpose in a friend’s pool back home. I had done so many rotations, my smoke-blackened lungs started to ache for a drag of fresh air. I wondered where the jellyfish was.

Then my tailbone hit sand. The swash had gracefully delivered me to the shore. As I gasped for breath and fought against the sudden pull of earth’s gravity, my travelling companions patted my back. I choked out a shaky laugh and told them that I met a jellyfish.

Author's Notes:

What doesn't work in this story is that it's non-fiction and I can't seem to figure out how to show, not tell. I should be able to inhabit my younger self in a first-person POV, but the intro is more explanatory than immersive story telling. I can't seem to fix it without expanding the wordcount by thousands. My voice also feels overwrought. Do I need so many grand conclusions and technical terms? Probably not. I was going for raw sensory memoir, not medical textbook, but I'm unsure how to explain physical sensations without leaning into the technical. And the section with the jellyfish was meant to slow momentum, but does it pause the narrative completely and take the reader out of the danger? It was a sweet moment that felt profound at the time.