Natalie Kane

This is where I was this afternoon, in this sea, beside that wonderful skeleton. 

Most of my life I’ve been so very wary of the water, I would panic so easily in endless folds of anonymity and sheer, overwhelming depth. I always found a cage around my lungs which bound me so tightly to fear, and kept me from understanding what the fuss was all about. I didn’t learn to be confident in water until last year, but I’m there now. This was completely exhilarating; I swam alone with no-one else visible, and tested my own boundaries in the almost-clear, perpetually green sea; it was completely mine. I haven’t had much ownership of anything lately, so this was it for a while. Thunder and Lightning echoed on the horizon and I floated underneath it, big thick dashes of rain hitting the open land of my face and throat and shoulders. It has cured a different, larger panic that has been brewing for the last two weeks, about my ability to study, write, and live. I found out today that I didn’t get the necessary funding for my education, which I was so, so sure of, but I didn’t and so I must go on. I could go on like this, as I am now, but I know I wouldn’t be happy like this. The sea knows this, I told it, with a body of salt and water.