The Land Keeps Me Drowning

They tell you that drowning is peaceful. People say that after the first panic passes, after your body stops fighting and your lungs finally surrender, something changes. They say warmth spreads through you. They say your mind softens at the edges. They say the fear disappears and the world becomes quiet. They say death by water feels like falling asleep. They are wrong. Drowning is not soft. Drowning is violence. It is your body turning against itself. It is instinct clawing at reason. It is your chest becoming a locked room with no windows. It is the animal part of you refusing to disappear. But people are only wrong about the water. I have drowned a hundred times. Not once was it beneath the surface. The ocean never stole my breath. The sea never lied to me. It never promised permanence. Never told me people would stay. Never looked me in the eyes and said forever. No, the places where I drowned always had solid ground beneath my feet. I drowned in hospital corridors that smelled like bleach and old coffee. I drowned in apartments where the walls leaned inward and every conversation sounded like breaking glass. I drowned in parking lots under white summer heat. I drowned beside open graves. I drowned in waiting rooms. I drowned at kitchen tables. I drowned in silence. The land is where gravity becomes unbearable. The land is where everything insists on staying. Buildings stay. Bills stay. Bodies stay. Memories stay. And every loss settles inside you like sediment until one day you realize you aren't standing anymore, you are buried. When I was younger, I thought breathing meant survival. Adults always say things like keep breathing or one day at a time, as if lungs are enough. But I learned early that people can keep breathing long after they've stopped living. My father breathed. My mother breathed. I breathed. And still, there were years where none of us surfaced. I think that's why I became obsessed with water before I understood grief. Before funerals. Before debt. Before hospitals. Before I learned that love can disappear even when no one chooses to leave. Water was the only place that never demanded anything from me. On land, everything has expectations. You got to stand up, speak, smile, and try harder. You need to forgive, move on, be grateful, and stay strong. You must carry this, carry more, and carry everyone. Land is obligation. Water is permission. I remember being small, small enough that adults still lifted me instead of asking me to walk. Someone had taken me to the ocean. I don't remember who anymore. Maybe my mother, my grandmother, or maybe memory itself has blurred into kindness. I only remember standing at the edge. The waves rolled in and touched my feet. It feels cold, then warm, and then cold again. The water arrived and left without apology. No permanence, no promises, no expectation. Just movement. I remember thinking, even then, that the sea understood something people didn't. Nothing stays. Not pain. Not joy. Not fear. Not love. Everything arrives and everything leaves. The sea never hides that. Years later, I would spend thousands of hours underwater. People always asked the wrong questions. Aren't you afraid? What about the pressure? What if something goes wrong? What if you don't come back up? But pressure never scared me. Pressure made sense it follows rules. Pressure can be measured and you descend. The atmosphere changes and so you adjust. You breathe differently while you ou respect the depth. And if you do those things correctly, the water lets you exist. Land isn't like that. Land tells you you're safe and then pulls itself apart beneath you. It says there will always be enough, until there isn't. Land says people recover, until they don't. Land says grief gets smaller but it doesn't. You just grow around it. Down below the surface, sixty feet underwater, the world changes. Sound disappears first and then you feel the urgency. The noise... Those light becomes soft, everything slows. Your breath becomes visible where every inhale announces itself, every exhale leaves you. You cannot rush underwater, you cannot argue with depth. You cannot carry ten years of regret while adjusting buoyancy. The sea demands presence and I can say presence is a relief. Down there, nobody asks questions. Nobody expects any explanations, no needs of comforting. In there nobody leaves. Even tears become meaningless because underwater, grief dissolves immediately. You cannot tell where sorrow ends and salt begins. For most of my life, I thought that meant the ocean was saving me. I thought the sea was teaching me how not to drown. I was wrong about that too. The ocean never rescued me. It simply gave me somewhere quiet enough to hear myself. What saved me if anything did was realizing breathing isn't something the world gives you. It's something you choose. Again. Again. Again. Even after the land takes what it wants. Even after the rooms go quiet. Even after the people you love stop answering. My life isn't about drowning. It's about learning the difference between sinking and letting go. And it begins the year I turned thirteen. The year the air inside our house became too heavy to breathe.