by pelagic_soul
I had always believed in mermaids. Ever since I went to those fairs when I was much younger, where they had the enclosed little stations set up and you got to have a tiny little peak at a half-fish woman for only 2 dollars. My parents always dragged me away saying, “Now don’t you believe in those things, dear. They’re not real. They’re just set up to fool everyone and take their money.” And longingly I would look back at that tiny building where that half-fish lady sat, not realizing where that pulling at my heart was coming from.

I’ll start you off here with telling you that my name is Misty. It’s not my real name, but it’s the name I feel most comfortable sharing. I am like the mist, in a way… Free, light, kind-hearted. I can be chilling, but it’s mostly that excitement you get when you’re in the mist and get sprayed lightly with water droplets. That’s me.

It wasn’t until about a few years ago I started questioning my past. I was always very fond of the water. The ocean, swimming, running through sprinklers… you name it, I loved it.  Anything as long as it had to do with the ocean were my favorite. But it wasn’t until I started looking at the ocean, I mean really looking at it… I started getting these flitting urges to lunge myself into it and never return. And then it started happening everywhere, lakes, streams… Any body of water I wish I could just throw myself into, and swim off forever past the horizon never to be seen again. …It’s not like I wanted to disappear forever, don’t get me wrong… It was just the calling and pulling any large body of water gave me. “Dive.” It’d say to me, whether I passed by it in a car or on foot. “Dive, dive my friend. Swim away. Swim away and never be found!” I never followed of course, as you can imagine. I mean how silly would it be? Suicidal, people would think. Me, throwing myself off a bridge or other, simply because my heart was being pulled by the voice of the deep. So, what did I do you ask? Well, I dealt with it. Through winter, spring, fall, summer… I dealt with it. I swam in the summer in a pool whenever I got the chance to. But still…It wasn’t the same. The pool didn’t speak to me, it was those great bodies of water that spoke to me. Mainly, the beaches when we went. Because unlike the lakes I knew I wouldn’t be trapped in the ocean. I could swim off there, riding the waves… And end up somewhere completely different. I could get lost, I could try and find my way back and never do… And as scary as I imagine it is for you right now to read that, and as scary as it was for me to think about it… I wanted that. I wanted to lose myself and free myself of legs, feet, loneliness, pain, broken hearts and broken memories. But I didn’t want that simply to get away from the pain of being human, no… It was just somehow, someway I knew the source of my loneliness was being seperated from the ocean. It was my true home at heart. And I knew…If I could simply find myself in that ocean, tasting its depths and its dangers, I would never have to deal with that loneliness again, because I was meeting it face to face.

So every summer I went to the beach. I shoved aside my longing for it, and squealed and giggled and laughed and fidgeted like any other as the waves came up to slap against my stomach or brush me across my face. And I walked into its depths until I could no longer feel anything underneath my feet but frigid sea water. I walked into its depths until the human, sane part of me feared drowning…and I returned to the shore. I walked into its depths until I couldn’t breath and had to return back to land to catch my breath…. And so there I stood. Children whizzing past me, the scent of salty sea water in my hair and on my skin, panting, watching those children only just get to the edge before freaking out. And part of me had to smile at that point… I knew I was just as human as them, just as scared that the waves would swallow me up, suck away my breath and drown me… But yet I still knew, that somewhere deep inside me, or maybe not as deep as I had thought…lay something or someone completely different. That person or thing didn’t care if the waves swallowed me whole. They didn’t care how far I went into that ocean and then didn’t turn back. They didn’t care that I only had weak legs, totally incapable of carrying me very far out to the harsh sea. They didn’t care that I was only human, could only hold my breath for very limit periods of time. Didn’t care I could lose my breath, and be lost forever in rolling waves and crying seagulls. That person or thing inside me, longed only for the ocean. For the sweetness of it carrying her away, dunking her deep within itself, letting her swim on forever and ever until she grew tired and rested inside its harsh waters. That person or thing inside me, wasn’t human I discovered. She was simply what was left over from a long time ago when I didn’t have to fear drowning inside the ocean’s waters. She was human, yet she wasn’t. She had the power to flick one strong muscle in her body, and glide into the depths of oblivion.

She was something that wasn’t half-fish, she wasn’t cold-blooded in any way, she was simply a creature of the sea as I wanted to be. She could dance forever below the ocean, lay in eternity on the shifting floor, watching with a sea-soaked smile rays of sunlight piercing through the dark heavens of her underwater world. And jealous, here I stood, watching the ever rolling waves break against the shore, powerless to stop myself from drowning even if I were the strongest girl in the world.

For so long I never knew why exactly I was lonely. I never knew whether it was from my desire to be swept away forever in the ocean or not. For a while, at least for a little while, I knew I longed to have by my side someone who was like me. A friend, who longed for the ocean as much as I did, someone who could have sworn that they had previously touched those depths and barely escaped the crushing jaws of a shark or electricity of an eel. Someone who had previously tasted the excitement and dangers of swimming on and on in a cold, dark, blue ocean until they grew tired. Someone who could flow like the water around them through the ocean, with merely a push of their flukes against the current. Just one person, who was as familiar with the feel of the water against their skin as well as I felt I was.

And so I would stand there, imagining that person. Someone with the same watery personality as my own. The girl, who like myself, waiting for winter and spring and fall to pass miserably, just awaiting that one day out of the whole summer, to dive herself into the deepness of the ocean. She could swear her tail was still attached to her. And as graceful and elegant that she was on land, she knew there was no better matched elegance, than the twirling and rolling movements of a mermaid inside her element. She could be a runner on land, with strong muscled legs, but even those could not live up to the powerful and sharp swims of a mermaid. …She would stand here, just as I, on the edge of the breaking waves, staring off into the ocean’s glimmering sea, wishing she could simply dive away and be lost forever.

Even now, when I’m floating in the unshifting water of a pool, do I like to pretend I’m merely that mermaid within her element. Rolling again and again, faster and slower underneath the water until I get dizzy. Diving deep off the board and seeing how long I can go without breath, wishing it weren’t two legs kicking behind me simultaneously but one strong tail. I wished instead of seeing nothing in front of me, I saw fish of all different colors and dangers waiting in the unknown… maybe a shark about to attack from out of a cave or abandoned ship, maybe a stingray waiting to get at me as it flew through the water on long powerful seawings. Yet, I knew…if there was anything I could match from underneath the sea, and underneath that pool, was the silence. Pulling myself down underneath the water by the ladder, and holding on tight as no sounds reached my ears was one of the things I loved to do most. Down here, no sounds of laughing children or birds or soft thunder off in the distance… Just silence. Just as silent as the bottom of the sea, I would think. Tons of creatures flitting and swimming all around, but none of them made any noise. Because beneath the sea, I knew…. was one gigantic, colorful circus just with no sounds. ..And then I let myself reach the surface, taking in those breaths of air I knew my body needed. I looked down at the silent waters beneath my feet, and knew I was no closer to tasting those depths than I had ever been before.

One can’t possibly imagine, the loneliness I go through all year, just being away from my element. The ocean is a mother to me, just as much as I believe I am a child to her. She soothes my sadness, she embraces me warmly when it’s been too long. She looks out for, and cares for all her children of the sea… It’s not simply missing life in the cold, pulsating waters of the deep… It’s a longing for home.

I suppose you could relate my story to that of The Little Mermaid. Only… I didn’t wish to sprout legs and join the world above the sea… I wished to dive into its depths, and surrender myself to all its joys and miseries.

For so long I never understood why I felt nobody knew the real me. And then I realized…if someone couldn’t understand my desire to dance in the ocean’s waves..they could never understand me. It’s who I am, it’s what I’m about, it’s my fantasy and my dream. It’s where my heart and soul is…it’s where my soul never left, and where my heart will always be. My body here restricts me. If it weren’t for being human, having restrictions on how far my body can take in the ocean… I could be home. I could be true to myself. But until the day I can break through binding breaths and restricting limbs…only then can I be truly happy. I leave you here, with the sweetness of a name I’ve carried long and carried true… Until the day you see me free in the chilling waters and embracing waves…. Remember this name: