I Almost Drowned and Now I’m Taking a New Shot at Life
I wish the title was figurative, but in another sense, I don’t at all.
The following was published August 10th, 2018 to my old Wordpress, but a year has passed since the story’s events took place and I’ve been thinking about it often. So many amazing things have happened in my life since then and I plan to write a recap of the year. The point of this repost is to move this entry to this blog and set the context for future posts. Enjoy :)
It’s May 27th — Sky is gloomy and I’m with my family and friends at the marina. A few of us head out on another fishing trip just off the coast of Cape May. We’re in the mood to catch some of these puppies:
Once you’ve heard the sound a drum fish makes you’ll never forget it. Bose bluetooth speakers ain’t got nothing on these boomers. But back to the story…
Half way to our destination, it becomes clear that the weather isn’t getting any better. But a little rain never hurt anybody right? Still in sight of land, we finally anchor up in roughly 20ft of water and begin prepping the bate for the rods; which is clam by the way. Rain is smacking us in the face from the port side of the boat whenever it has the chance. In an effort to mitigate this experience, I have the idea to move the bait table to the starboard side of the boat. It’s small and mounts in the rod holders. All that happens next happened very quickly…
Pause. There’s an important detail to this story I must cover. Clam is not so easily married to the hook because of how slimy and tender it is. An integral piece to this bait is using this very string that you wrap around it so it has a longer hook-life when getting pecked at under the surface. Otherwise, you’re basically just providing the fish with a nice free meal.
As I set the table down in the rod holder, this little spool of string (about the length of my pinky finger) rolls off the one open side of the table and dives into the water below. My heart sinks — Of all things that could have fallen in. The worst part is we thought we forgot to bring it with us, but after 10 minutes of looking, we found it. My immediate thought is, we didn’t come all the way out here in the rain and cold for me to drop this stupid little spool in the water. I watch it bob along the side towards the stern for a few moments and I decide: I’m gonna jump.
I abandon what I’m doing and dive in. Simple right? I’ll just grab it and get back on the boat and everyone will turn around and ask why I’m all wet (well…more wet). Besides, we were just out fishing the day before and jumping in the water for fun. If only…But storms, I now know, have a very big impact on the current.
I see the spool floating there in front of me and go for it. Somehow, I miss. I glance back at the boat to gauge my surroundings. It’s moving away from me a little faster that I expected (or rather, I am) as I bounce in the choppy wake, but I can do this. I know I can. I locate the spool again and reach for it more intentionally this time. Yet again, it slips through both of my hands in the rough, dark-green water. This time when I look back at the boat, I am surprised. The current is ripping me away and I am already twice as far from the boat than before. I see my sister yelling, the others hastily reeling in the lines I am now passed. I begin to feel the weight of what I just did. I would feel so silly to not have actually gotten what I came for at this point. So, one final time, I reach for this pompous little spool that seems to have just been toying with me this whole time, dances out of my hands once again. I have this baffling, paradigm-shift moment where all those ridiculous scenes in movies that seem so fake — when the hero just can’t quite reach something, but manages to in the nick of time — suddenly become not so ridiculous or outlandish to me anymore.
I feel the spool hit my kicking shins after alluding another grab. As the theme would have it, I abandon what I’m doing and turn around.
Smaller and smaller, they get. I am about a football field’s length away now and I can only imagine what their perspective of me being sucked away looked like. I know I will not soon forget mine. I begin swimming back toward my shrunken crew members with all I have. Now, I wouldn’t consider myself an expert swimmer, but I’m certainly not a couch potato. However, with the waves as rough as they are, I take in about 2–3 gulps of sea water. I didn’t realize how much I was straining and gasping (apparently) as my adrenaline took over. 20 seconds into this futile cause, and only matching the speed of the current, I sense danger for the first time. I know for certain that I can’t make it back. Especially with these two jackets I’ve been wearing this whole time weighing me down. One is a rain jacket and the inner one is a cozy North Face; both zip-ups.
My instincts start grabbing at the steering wheel, as if to say, “Ok Bub, your turn’s over. We let you have your fun but now look where we are. You got us into this mess and we’re gonna get you out. Capisce?” I begin to unzip my jackets one by one and, amazingly, they slide right off without any struggle. It seemed that being in water actually made it easier because they were floating loosely from my shoulders as I removed them. But I was not about to let them go, I liked these too much and I wasn’t gonna lose them over this. Although, I could now swim much better, the current was just still too strong. I had a feeling that I would drown before I even got there out of pure exhaustion.
Lightning now sparks miles away and illuminates the gloomy sky above, whose rain is unrelenting. Before this string of events (pun not intended), I don’t think I could ever say I had seen my life flash before my eyes. But for the first time ever I thought, Wow, this could be it. And that’s how Jonny went, over some stupid string. My thoughts turn dark for a moment, running a circuit of ways I could not die. What if something grabs my foots and pulls me under water? What if lighting strikes too close? At this point, I’m just praying to see a life line; that’s all I need to see. My poor, worried friends, are scurrying about the slippery boat, doing everything by the seat of their own pants to rescue me. One is at the helm, one is helping pull up the anchor, others are searching and reeling in lines. They finally find the life line, but something is wrong. Two of them are talking over it and they put it back down. My heart sinks a little. Apparently, the line was too tangled to even cast out to me.
But something in me just said, “not like this.” No way. Not now. I had this will rise up in me and believe that I was just not going to die today. I would simply wade here in the water, drift as long and far as I had to until my deliverance. One of them looked out to me and held a tiny arm up in the air with a tiny thumbs-up. I replied with my own thumbs-up and the dialog was understood.
And so here I am. I now have these sobering moments in the midst of a storm, and I remember thinking and feeling, should I die: Was that it? Am I happy with that? Did my life lead to this moment? Am I happy with the life of Jonny Miller and all he did or didn’t do? And it was a resounding NO. A thumb half-up. A 3 star review.
Eventually, the boat begins to grow bigger. Exhausted, I swim in their direction as they reverse towards me. Closer and closer — Salvation. They swing open the transom door, located on the stern for dragging in the larger hooked fish. Little did we know, I would be the only fish caught on this night. 100, 50, 25 feet — their faces come into focus once again. However, this last 10 feet are the hardest part of this whole thing. My friend, Janelle, is reaching her hand out as far as she can, but the boat stops short. It’s a balance between not running me over with the propellers below and being close enough to make contact. Just 3 more feet, I’m pushing my tired muscles. They give the throttle another little pump and we grab hands. She helps pull my soaking mess onto the deck. Fish out of water.
I lay there, sprawled. Relief falling over me like the rain. Laughter escapes. But embarrassment still follows. I almost just died, and also gave some of my friends a heart attack in the process. Even worse…no string… But really, enough things went right that I didn’t meet my end right there, aside from all that went wrong. Because of the weather, everyone else was wearing rain boots and big, water resistant pants. Not me. It would have made it that much hard to keep my head up had I worn the same, instead of just bare feet and a bathing suit on my lower half.
Now shivering, with a towel around me, from the cold rain and adrenaline, my muscles begin to cramp and ache. I didn’t realize just how much I was straining when swimming for my life. Next, my stomach began to turn from the amount of saltwater I took in. I felt and looked pale. It’s safe to say I felt pretty miserable at this point, also being the center of this whole fiasco. What’s even worse is they had to cut the anchor line to get back to me. The storm was in full effect, we needed another anchor and I was feeling well. I decided to call it quits and let them get another anchor and continue to fish without me.
Upon returning to the docks, I sat in our boat, silent, feeling like a walking ghost, letting myself take in reality and that it’s still right in front of me. When my mother found me, she hugged me and cried.
The thing is, I just endured two of the hardest breakups of my life in a foreign state. I came home and almost drowned off the coast of Cape May. I realized I just had that second chance moment, that not all people get. It was these experiences, and overcoming them, that led me to adopt a new mentality: I became a “Yes Man.” I saw the experiences in life I passed up, but not anymore. It was a kind of shedding, a physical drowning of the heartbreak and negative. This is the year I’ve decided “yes” to things that come my way and to see where the current takes me. It has already led to some new friendships, experiences, photoshoots, auditions and other exciting, beneficial moments to my life. It even led me to meeting my dear girlfriend, Sophie. That is another great story in itself. However, she ended up lending me a book (The Tao of Pooh) weeks after all this. The book has helped me find more peace amongst life’s waves and calmed some chronic overthinking I have struggled with for some time. Interestingly, a passage from a timely parable in it stuck out to me and reads:
“I go down with the water and come up with the water. I follow it and forget myself. I survive because I don’t struggle against its superior power. That’s all.”
(old man at Gorge of Lü waterfall, pg.69)
Everything for a reason. Thanks for reading.
