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It is August, but school has begun. I know this floating time is ending. I let my feet dip off the edge of the tube and I kick them around in the water, bouncing, creating ripples, and I remember the summer. This was the summer I did dangerous things.
I smoked weed. I snuck out of my house to run around the narrow neighborhood streets with other sneaker-outers. I lied to my parents. I went to third base. I made promises I broke, and I learned how to navigate conflict between my beloved best girlfriends, my siblings, and my boss. I drove recklessly. I partied in corn fields peppered with kegs. I stole a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt.
For now, though, I was floating, far from the shore. In the middle. Floating the bridge between summer and fall, between my junior and senior year, between safety and the unknown, between a mundane daily grind and big life decisions, like college, and saving money, and “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
I didn’t know then, and I still don’t know.
Field hockey season. It was already brutal. We practiced on the field next to the football players and damn if that didn’t make me run my miles faster and with more flourish. My chest was way too large for running naturally, but I tried. I was the team captain. My best friend would break school records this year, and I would learn how to lead and give pep talks and manipulate. We would beat Pomperaug and a few other powerhouse teams. I was athletic, but not a superstar. I played defense. I had good instincts against wily goal scorers. I still do.
I didn’t know it yet, but my boyfriend would write love notes that went something like this: “I love you, but I’m not in love with you. I love you so much but I just can’t anymore. I love you, but…” What he was trying to say was: “I love you, but…I want to explore other opportunities. I want to feel other boobs and see Steven Spielberg movies with many, many others and drive my cool car around with someone other than you. I’m a senior now. I’m hot. The younger girls want me bad. Not sure I can resist the dopamine hits of all that attention.” That’s what he was trying to say and so we broke up.
I will watch him sort through a bevy of baby chicks, and collect notches and casualties throughout my senior year. We will steal glances and make eye contact across the lunch room and even talk at random parties, but he knows. He knows I liked him before he was cool, and what I know is knowing that never leaves a person.
Floating, I let my head fall back and my hair dip into the water. I let it swish around. I see little rainbow swirls on the surface, evidence I didn’t quite rinse all the Jhirmack conditioner out of my hair that morning. And then a f*cking fish nips my toe, which sends me squealing. Nothing prepares you for the nip even if you’re a born and bred lake girl who grew up inhaling and exhaling the lake, who grew up catching sunfish and minnows and catfish from docks in the dark of night, who grew up knowing they were there waiting. The fish. You always forget they’re hungry too.
I feel a change coming. In the air. In the season. In all of my relationships. It makes me good and mellow. I close my eyes and soak up the sun. I feel the heat of desire for something new. I’m ready, but I’m not pushing it.
I am floating, and there is no resistance. My hands cup the water and I spin. For now I feel free. Yellow light dials down to orange, to pink even, but I am not aimless like the colors above and I am not yet fluid like the water below. I am present and wondering what could be better than this feeling, this feeling of floating on a beautiful lake, beneath a sky I will someday try to paint, alone with my thoughts, not yearning for a single thing, yet.
Floating is what happens in between. It’s the middle place. It’s where we center and reset, which is fitting for the middle, don’t you think?
It’s the day before my life begins again. I am still a child, but no one is calling me home.
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