Diving in

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12:57 a.m.

It was a hardish day.

I use the term ‘ish’ rather loosely because there have been others that have been far worse over the past week or two; today was not the chart-topper, but would most certainly rate amongst the top ten.

Have you ever felt like you could literally eat your way through the walls which surround you? Have you ever before felt that terrible sensation...a kind of horribleness which seems to grow, spreading like the tendrils of a noxious, wild plant—threatening to strangle you? Have you ever been in a store and wanted to start grabbing objects off of the shelves and start hurtling them across the room?

That’s exactly how I was starting to feel today. It was relentless and eating away at my insides, like that scene in “Alien” when the creature is lodged in the man’s chest and rips its way out…

I know. Gross.

Mom and I sat alone in the deafening silence of the hushed-up house for a couple of hours today. After a while, I finally had to have some type of background noise—it was far too silent: a movie, music, something.

I’d been very selective with my dad lately when it came to movies, and knew I had to be careful.

“Put in a movie,” he’d say. As I’d thumb through the collection I’d brought, I’d discard options immediately.

Mr. Deeds…No, cancer references.

Sleepless in Seattle…No, death.

Moulin Rouge?…No, death.

Pay it Forward?...No, death.

The Bucket List? Most definitely not.

So instead of a movie playing in the background, I opted for some music; instrumental strains to lift and fill. I adjusted my iPod to Jon Schmidt and then began the arduous task of being.

I was fine, until this song began to play.

I won’t go into detail of what I felt as the music played, but I felt it; I could have switched it off…I probably should have, but I didn’t. I allowed it to overpower me, to consume me, to envelop me in a vesicle of anguish.

It.was.horrible.

It was later that my dad arrived back home and around 8:00 this evening I found myself down on the elevated railroad tracks which traverse over Lake Pend Oreille. I stared at the swirling rivulets of water—trillions of droplets combined together creating this massive lake.

I sat there for a long time as the sun set over the mountains, and eventually sat down on the rocks at the water’s edge, staring.

I felt the urge to jump.

But no, I’d brought no swimming trunks, and wasn’t prepared to swim.

Suddenly, I didn’t care. Giving way to impulse, I stripped away my shoes and leapt into the placid waters. I soared through the air for a moment and then was enveloped in a saturated deluge. As the water closed over me, I felt something come away, like a layer of gloom

It was like I’d been revitalized, refilled, reanimated yet again. A smile came to my face as I felt the coolness of the water flowing about me and I clambered onto the shoreline rocks.

The summer wind blew my hair as the water dripped from my clothes.

I jumped in again.

Yes, I had finally found the great and powerful Wizard of Oz, I’d found what I’d been looking for all along.

At least for today.