MAN OVERBOARD

It was midnight; I was not ready for sleep. I decided to take a moonlight walk around the deck of the ship. The night was so peaceful and clear. I watched the moon glisten across the quiet ripples of the gentle sea. I stood alone by the deck rail looking out into the blackness of night. The warm ocean breeze felt so soothing upon my face. As the stars twinkle in the black sky, there was a calmness and peacefulness in the air. I thought to myself here I am miles from home and traveling seeking fun in the sun and sand. This was for my sabbatical, my well-deserved moment, and me just for me. This voyage was supposed to be the consummation of my successful career. I felt accomplished, established, financially secure, healthy, and notable? I was traveling with good friends. I had never made much time for them in the past. Now for some strange reason during this first night I began to feel hollow and loneliness, creeping deep into my loins. I felt so incomplete, empty and disconnected. I thought to myself how could that be? I’ve spent my entire life just focusing on me. I lived life and rarely caring what others thought or felt. I was not sensitive to the adverse effect my decisions and actions had made on anyone else.

I leaned against the ship’s rail and thinking, this ship is like my life. A hollow vessel on a journey to a known destination, ever moving never identifying with its cargo; being touched never touching. Ferrying strangers, not caring, moving from port to dock and sharing not. I gazed again into the dark cool night, trying to push the thoughts from my minds sight, suddenly and without warning the ship moved from under me. I lost my balance and fell over the side and screamed and plunged into the sea. No one heard me or came to my aid. No life preserver was thrown this is my bon voyage. I had fallen overboard in the night. Fallen from sight watching the ship disappeared into the darkness of the night. A dream? A nightmare? Man overboard, no rescue anywhere.

Man overboard cast into the sea, lost in an unfamiliar contradictory dark world. Without warning, I dropped into a black abyss, a strange brew of swirls. From that sea of darkness, this is my story expressed through rhymes, poems, laments, visions, rambling and ravings from life changing experiences. The story of me, fallen overboard into the sea of depression. Treading and thrashing at the death’s door. I was without friends, or family, lost for evermore. I was engulfed in hopelessness and faced with wave after wave of insecurity. Swells of deep-seated fears, feeling worthless and disconnected from my world. I was immersed and swimming disoriented in emotional pain and discontentment.

This book is a personal testament , the losses, the pains and gains. Lost in self-centeredness and personal neglect, personal hurt and feeling abused and misused and misunderstood. Brushes with feeling hopelessness and worthlessness. The waves were relentless. Somehow I stuffed it all, somewhere deep down inside and revisited in a place called depression? Depression is never very far away. It waits and lurks in the shadows. Nothing prepares us for the fall into the abyss of the invisible darkness. I share these joyful mummeries and thoughts and my mental demise and my eventual rise and from the unthinkable formless dust reborn.

It is difficult to feel blessed when your soul is in a holocaust and your spirit seems to have taken flight to the nethermost.

Deep buried emotional pain stops us from loving, sharing and getting on with life; it prevents us from seeing real joy and the beauty in living. We usually look for some one or some thing to fix it or look to find some quick fix to avoid the final duty. Too live on to face another day laced with pain and disappointments. There are no substitutes for inner strength and courage. The strength of living is never giving up, keep trying and then try again.

This book is to share that there can be victory from such a dark ordeal, even when all seems lost and hopeless

And the inner struggle is surreal and to learn that:

“Happiness is the giving in life. Staying hopeful is the essence of living”.   William P. Powell