This essay was originally written in June 2016.
Washed-out indigo threads adorn her slated shoulders, matching the melancholy mood reflected in her hazel windows. She’s inconsequential, and the world embraces her disposition, sighing along to a tune of infrequent, elongated whispers.
She is swimming—not drowning, but not winning medals either—in a vast ocean, meters beneath the surface, and the cobalt hue engulfs her completely. Diamonds sparkle just up above and she can almost taste their refracted sunshine. She knows how to reach them, too, and yearns to inhale that first, salty breath of fresh air; yet, something keeps her down.
Pressure ringing deaf in her ears, she treads—right, left—for the undulating ocean knows no direction. Neither does she; stuck in limbo. Every time her hand rises through the molasses water to grasp the sunlit gems sky-high, the surface just barely misses her fingers. Again and again she tries, tiring, and her world turns midnight blue. An inexplicable weight rests upon her, and she needs to let go.
So she does.
Plunging deeper and deeper into the ocean, her toes touch gently upon rock bottom. ‘This is it,’ she muses calmly. It’s so easy to succumb, letting the cold, sapphire molecules keep her company down below. The golden rays seem so distant now, but, almost perversely, the heaviness is comforting.
Suddenly it gets too tight and the ocean claustrophizes her.
Year-long moments tick by.
Suddenly, and all at once, her frail but underlying mental positivity begins to frantically paint an alternate perspective. There is simply nowhere to go but up, and the inhospitably cold sand below galvanizes her, ironically. She, a mermaid, forcefully glides up through the resistant water and the first sense of freedom courses through her like sheer energy. She breathes, diamonds glistening all around.
The fresh air does wonders for her clarity. There is no ocean, no sand, no engulfing feeling of water pushing her down. The catalyst inside her—the heart, that which has known all along—finally heats up and radiates outward. She sheds her blue outer layer to expose the glistening yellow aura that had been obfuscated, unknowingly, for so long.
It is her turn to shine. She sheds her sweater, knowing that nothing can weigh her down.