outpacing death
cw: depression
once I had a where hundreds of people lined up for an open-air swimming race. the venue, an enormous open-air ocean pool with marked lines as far as the eye could see. a friend and I watched in curiosity. when the starting gun fired, every participant had to dive to the bottom of the pool, swim along the bottom as far as they could, before resurfacing. with each resurface, a small white flag rose from the water, indicating their personal record. then they’d return to the shallow aqua pool. there was no winning or losing with this game: each swimmer simply tried to push their white flag a little further with each attempt. participants were of all ages and types: men, women, children. I smiled with a sort of affection for their striving.
in my dream journal, I always note any external circumstances that might correlate with the dream. here, I was four days into one of those crazy seven-day water fasts I used to do. there is a certain clarity one reaches when you haven't eaten for that long, when your brain stops craving exogenous glucose and shifts into a metabolic state that relies on your body's existing resources. I experienced a lot of spiritual growth during those years. a lot of pain, a lot of grief, a lot of joy. a return to the things I'd locked away in my heart.
I've been back on this earth for a couple of years, now. I attained the very life I coveted back then—beautiful relationships, financial security, a meaningful job, creative freedom, an apartment—but I seem to have lost something along the way. I couldn't return to the beginning. my little white flag stays where it is, flapping lamely in the dying wind. my dream was set in calm, sunny waters, and no one warned me about the storm that will send us under and under and under.
I only have striving left for staying above the waves. the only beauty left is my words, in third person. I only know myself, my life, as an unfolding drama. I’ve stopped trying to convince myself that life is inherently rich and joyful and meaningful. I’ve stopped trying to return to a baseline that probably never existed. I've seen enough to instead be convinced that life is cold and brutal and relentless and maybe we are all sugarcoating it. is it cynicism if I know I am swathed in love and beauty and privilege, and yet I feel nothing but a gnawing, empty ache? every day I try to outpace the grief. every day I am visited by an inexplicable urge to cry tears that are not mine. I think they are the collective tears of the world. I go through the motions of "self-care" diligently etched into my neural pathways from years of therapy—shower, talk to a friend, cook a meal, go for a walk, do something nice for someone. each endeavour a futile mundane act of resistance against the screaming, suffering world. each futile mundane act totalling into an endeavour you might call devotion. I used to talk about what keeps me alive, but as my soul seems to hurtle towards certain annihilation I can think only about outpacing death. devotion will not save me, or anyone perhaps, but it will slow the fall.