Suspension

On Friday, I didn't go to work--I wasn't feeling well, and I already woke up late, so I texted my boss to let her know that I would be about 30 minutes late, and then she told me that she thought it would be good if I took a day to myself. I just finished up finals for my summer class, and I've been relatively busy, so I took her up on it. I went over to our apartment's pool because I hadn't gone swimming all summer--there was always something more important to do. The lifeguard looked like he could care less about pool safety, and the kids at the pool were on the shallow side, so I took my shirt off, and I jumped. And down there in the deep end, I let out as much breath as I could, and I floated down toward the bottom... gently abandoning the air above for whatever was resting down there, but I couldn't completely hit the concrete. I could feel my stopping point just inches below me, but I couldn't quite get down there: I was suspended--stuck somewhere between the top and the bottom.

And outside of being in the water, being suspended is one of the worst places in the world to be. My favorite definition, according to The Free Dictionary, of suspension is: a postponement as of a judgment, opinion, or decision. See pause. It reminds me of one of the most humanizing days of my life. The first time I ever watched someone die was the first time that I really ever understood what the definition of suspension was. Because as my friend and I took turns diving in to the Little River looking for this man neither of us knew, I would take these moments to just exist in the middle of the water--mostly because I was afraid of what would happen if I found him. We were diving to the bottom, stirring up all of the silt and the algae, so the water was thicker than smoke. I would dive and search, mostly feeling around for a stray hand or perhaps a foot... maybe a head, but to keep my sanity about me, I would also just wait. I would stop in the midst of the silt and pray that the river might pull me away... to someplace where someone wasn't dead, I guess. I suspended myself from life, and for the few seconds I did, I didn't have to be apart of a world that I didn't want to. But the last time that I dove in, I paused for too long; I found myself at the bottom of the riverbed without a single breath of air left in me, and I looked up to the top of the water, and I could see the blurriness of the sky. I grabbed at my throat and pushed as hard as I could toward the top, unsure if I would make it or not, and inside the goggles I could feel tears start to scorch the corners of my eyes. I had paused too long. I was caught in a point of suspension. I began to feel my throat close, but I wouldn't open my mouth--I refused to be the second body we were searching for, and once I finally made it to the top, I pulled the goggles off, and I said that I couldn't search anymore.
Within a minute, we found the body, and once it was pulled to the surface, I was the one who pulled him out. And that's when I watched him die--suspension was over. I think we knew that he was going to be dead within the first couple minutes of searching, but it's nothing that anyone wanted to say. And even in the less extreme cases, it seems that's the way it goes. We find ourselves suspended in every stretch and aspect of life, but it's never something we want to admit because we would rather live in the comfortable hysteria of life instead of figuring out a way to potentially deal with it. But for me, the only place that I can comfortably be suspended is, in fact, in the water. I sat there in the middle of the pool, letting all of my air out and waiting for my body to respond to what it wasn't getting--and that sounds morbid. It's morbid, isn't it? I wouldn't dare tell that to someone outright because I'm sure it sounds like I'm trying to off myself or something, but I feel like it's the opposite. I think the reason I let myself float in the middle of the pool, as what little air in my lungs decreases and decreases, is because I want to remember what it's like to value life so much. I want to be reminded of how scared I was to stop living because, as of late, I've been stuck in that metaphorical suspension--I've forgotten what it's like to want to live for something bigger.
I suppose it's something that happens to all of us from time to time, but for some reason, I've become so self-aware of it. I'm not the most conventional Christian that's ever existed, but at one point, I went to church every Sunday, and the only sermon that I remember is one about being comfortable. Our pastor, Corey, told us about how dangerous it is to be comfortable, and whenever you become comfortable with your life, you should take a moment to enjoy it, and then find a way to make yourself uncomfortable again because nothing gets done when you're comfortable. And I'm going to take a moment to step away from the Millennial stereotype and respond to all the people who are saying, What do you have to complain about? You're in a giant city with a great education and a job. And to that I would say, you're absolutely correct. By all standards, I have nothing to complain about because there are people in the world that have barely any of their needs met.
But no matter where you're at in life, we all have needs: we need to feel like we're alive or that we're working toward something with greater meaning than we understand now. For most of my peers, that's a spouse... or at least someone to share their lives with. And I respect that, and I guess I want it too, but not now. That's what makes the feeling of suspension more terrifying. When you're suspended with company, you don't feel as compelled to move--we're a species who loves company. That's why we throw dinner parties and call our friends when we're drunk. But when you're suspended, as if you can't breathe with everyone else, and their oxygen comes in the form of intimate relationships, you feel even lonelier. You have to make a choice: acquiesce to what is normal, or rather, should be normal... or you rise above the suspension. You find the bottom of the river or the pool or what-have-you, and you push harder than you ever have before... because you want to find the happiness you're searching for within yourself. If you can get to the top, there's got to be some other people up there who feel the same. They want to be excited about life; they want to work to achieve something bigger than they had ever imagined. And what makes us so essential to each other is that we want something that everyone else seems to be desperately trying to escape from: most of us like people, but right now, in this body of water and confusion, we want to find the answers we want inside of ourselves.
As I semi-drowned myself in the pool, the lifeguard who didn't originally look that interested in saving lives started taking notice of me. He eventually asked me to come out of the pool to show him my pool pass, which I think was his way of saying, Listen, I'm really not up for pulling your body out of the pool, so I'm going to need you to cut the shit. I didn't try and explain what I was doing to him because I don't feel like he would really get it: I wasn't trying to kill myself; I was just trying to remember exactly what it was like to be alive. I think we need to be reminded what it's like to be alive sometimes because if we aren't, we're just going to waste it. And the light at the top of the water may be the only light we see--we can't be sure that there's anything bright and shiny on the other side, but in my final moments as my respiratory system starts to seize and my brain begins to shut down and I float into that place where your body calms itself to pass peacefully, I want to know that I was reaching for that light. I want to know that the person I share the rest of my life with was right there, pushing for something more as well. I want to go out fighting.