Lights Will Guide You Home
I’m sitting in my car with the windows down because I don’t want to run the air conditioner for however long it will take my teenager to finish her shopping. If past experiences are any predictor, it’ll be a while. I take out my phone and start scrolling, the way we all do now rather than be bored or alone with our thoughts.A rescue video captures my (no doubt shortened) attention. I love rescue videos, particularly of animals, but really, any kind of rescue fascinates me. I love the tenacity of the struggler, the compassion of strangers, and the climactic moment of salvation. TikTok enlightenment. Instagram epiphanies. I’ll take it any day over shouting and snide pontificating. Show me how that puppy is doing now with his new family!This video is an older one, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it. A four-year-old girl sits on a unicorn floatie, surrounded by open sea. A ferry boat approaches slowly so as not to capsize the little girl. Some of the crew grab life rings as they make their painstaking way closer. Finally, a man is able to grab her. He tucks her under his arm like a football and carries her, I assume, toward the cabin. She is saved. Of course, she’s been saved, that’s the point of the video. Still, I feel a tightness in my chest that I didn’t even know I had begin to release. I let out a shuddery breath. She’s safe. She’s safe. People cared. People helped. She made it back to dry land.I can’t exactly say why this video resonates with me so strongly. Perhaps the fact that she’s so young, almost a toddler, still. There’s something utterly heartrending about the way she’s clinging to that floatie, all alone. She’s facing away from the shore, so she can’t even see land anymore. The thought pops into my head, “That’s me. That was me.” The revelation is so startling, I get lightheaded.Afterward, I go looking for news articles about what happened next. Where were her parents? What happened? I need to know. Sometimes, little girls get swept out into dangerous waters, and no one knows. No one sees. That hits me hard.The little girl who was and is me cannot turn away from this story. The slow advance of the boat. The crewmen standing by patiently with life preservers. Then, the moment they haul her aboard. I read later that when her parents realized she’d drifted away, within minutes, they notified the port authorities, who then radioed the ferry. She had been missed. I am so relieved to know this. According to the news, this same captain had rescued an elderly man who had also been swept away as he floated on an inflatable mattress.Currents don’t care who you are. They just take you. Then, it’s your job not to drown. That is a big job for a little girl. For any of us. Some of us are surrounded by people with life preservers, but they don’t see us. We’re too scared to ask for help. Maybe we think no one would understand, so we need to handle it ourselves. My therapist would say that that is never the job of a child.Sometimes, all you can do is hang on to your unicorn. Sometimes, there’s a boat that comes to the rescue, but in my experience, you often end up paddling yourself back to shore. It can take years. Some people are doing their very best to paddle, and still they drown. Why do some people make it back and others don’t?These days, I still drift, occasionally. I’m lucky that there is a boat full of family and friends who are waiting to pull me on board. I’m lucky to have finally found the right therapist, after years and years. I know not everyone has that, though everyone should. Even then, I still had to paddle really hard. Sometimes, all I could do was be carried by the waves as they broke over my head. It was lonely. It was terrifying. At times, it was excruciatingly boring – an endless apathetic nothingness.
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Those of us on dry land need to keep a lookout. Light a beacon so that the ones who are lost know which way is home. We need to build seaworthy vessels for ourselves. We need to go and get the ones who have drifted so far they may be ready to give up hope.But also – this is important – I try to remember that I do know how to paddle. It’s not easy, but it can be done. There will be treacherous waters and tumultuous storms, but I can float. I can ride it out. I write these things down in my journal so I’ll remember how I did it. Each time is different, but there’s still something to be learned from surviving past adversity. There is hope.We can be lights on the shore, guiding each other home.