The Warrior I’ve Become
“You don’t know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have. — Unknown”
I often wondered how long I could hold my breath underwater. It wasn’t long, thirty seconds, maybe a minute. I was always so nervous that I would hold out just a little too long and not make it back to the surface. Each time I broke from the water I would suck in the biggest gulp of air. It was a relief to be above the waves.
This is what my freedom feels like. It feels like I held my breath too long under the water, wondering if I would make it to the top, only to surface with a rush of warm Florida air filling my lungs as if they were strained balloons. With each aching breath I would take, more and more air would flow into me and I felt my body coming alive again. I really can’t put into words how it made me feel. How it truly made me feel to finally be able to BREATHE.
Throughout the journey I took, there were many moments where I thought that I was going to drown. Like I was in way too deep over my head. I felt like a lost diver in an underwater cave desperately trying to find a way through it, trying to find a way out of it. I remember thinking “How am I going to do this? What am I going to do?” I never had the answers. All I knew to do was push forward and hope to find an exit. A new way to go at least that wasn’t full of jagged rocks and barnacles eagerly waiting to rip into my suit, allowing the water to rush in.
I couldn’t stop going. I had to keep pushing. For many nights I fought to sleep and I fought back tears that were freely streaming down my face. My body was broken and my mind was shattered. I had hope and faith and I clung to joy as hard as I could. Telling myself positive words and uplifting praises of how well I was doing. “Just keep believing in yourself” I would say in a whisper only I could hear. I had to be brave. That was a word I had never had to be before. I never had to be BRAVE or STRONG, I just had to be me. The water that tried to consume me and the fire that tried to burn me placed a silent fear in my heart that I never allowed anyone to see.
It goes to say that when we as human are faced with adversity, whether social or personally, we adapt in ways that we never in our wildest dreams could have imagined. Eventually I learned that being brave and strong wasn’t something to fear, but something to celebrate. Little by little by strength was coming back to me. I was no longer the scared little boy I had lived for most of my life. I was becoming the man I knew I was meant to be. I became a warrior. A fighter! I wasn’t going to go down with shit in my pants and tears in my eyes. I was going to bare my teeth, tighten my knuckles, and straighten my back. The darkness that was trying to consume me wasn’t ready for what I was going to throw at it.
Day after day I fought. It was an endless battle. Bloodied and bruised. My spirit was being torn from one corner to the next, but my blade would always find its mark. With every ghoul, demon, and foul thing that came at me I would slice away. Gutting them. Filleting them. Beheading them. I was never going to allow myself to die this way. I was never going to allow my body to fall apart. I was never going to allow my soul to be stripped from me. Again, I fought and again I won. Bruises formed and blood seeped from fresh wounds but I was still alive. I was still healing.
Months went by. The darkness that I fought so hard to hold back was trying to infiltrate my mind. Depression crept in. Suicide ran across my brain like a track star running for the finish line. Why had I thought those things? Why was it that I was so willing to give up? The answer is now very clear. I was tired. I felt as if I was a burden on those around me. I felt that I wasn’t strong enough. Giving up and letting the darkness in me win was the easiest way out. No one knew those thoughts. No one realized that behind the smile and the facade that I was secretly hurting. I dwelled on the way I looked, on the way I felt about myself. I dwelled and dwelled. In the silence of the night voices spoke to me “give up, there is no reason to fight anymore. Aren’t you just tired of fighting?” I was tired of fighting. But nothing worth fighting for is useless and I was never useless.
So I pushed through the pain. I pushed through the neglect. I pushed through false words from those I loved. I pushed through the sickness in my body. I refused to give in that easily. With callused hands and broken fingernails I pulled myself up off the ground. I pulled myself from the soiled earth below me. I gripped my sword and held it tight. No more was I going to let those visceral words haunt my mind. I was going to be free of this. So that’s what I did…I fought. I bled. I cried. I screamed. I won.
The bell rang. The triumph over the plague in my body was won. I was whole again. The ashes that bore me fell from my skin which now glowed as hot as fire and as beautiful as a diamond. Though the fire was hot, the water was deep, the battle was bloody, and the fear was deadly; I prevailed when there was a slight moment that I didn’t think I would. Like the phoenix rising from the ashes, I am now reborn into a new vessel. THE WARRIOR I’VE BECOME would forever live strong in me. For I am now FREE.
