Surviving

Entry #39

I remember watching as he told his story. The same way, but a different audience. The same gentle blue eyes, the same gray beard bobbed up and down. His eyebrows furrowed and raised, emphasizing every move. His survival story. Told once and again. Afghanistan, the war, living in the bush, fending off animals and Afghans. I would sigh and listen again. I always looked at how he shared his story. The one he lived to tell. The one he survived to share.

Years later, after surviving and sharing his story hundreds of times, he died. The story lived on. He was well known. My dear grandfather lived and shared his story. Museums shared his story. Newspapers read of what he did. Interviewers hunted him down, thirsty for details.

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Entry #99

People say not to trust a survivor, until you know how they survived. Makes me wonder if I am trustworthy. I, myself, have survived a living nightmare. I'm still surviving. Yet I don't share my story. Why would I? It brings up too many memories. Too many things I'd rather forget. Pain I want to leave behind. Hurt I want to never feel again.

Even as I write this, I wonder if I should write about my story. About my survival. I have nothing better to do with my time. I already finished everything I could thing of. I'm lonely, depressed, and lost. Lost in the middle of the ocean. One that is hundreds, thousands of miles wide. No one will find me. I'm out here, writing out of boredom. I'm writing to survive. Some days I wish I never had the opportunity to find freedom. It's almost harder than dealing with the pain I felt for more than half my life.

Will anyone care about how I survived? How I, a lowly orphan, finally managed to get a boat and set sail? To feel freedom for the first time? Would they even believe my story? No one ever believed me. Nobody loved the poor little girl. The skinny, sickly, quiet girl.

I finally get to be free from years of being tossed around. Tossed around in a sea of orphanages and fake love. Years of pain and hurt that emanated from being moved around. Scars that run across my heart so deep, they may never heal. Yet here I am, surviving the ocean that batters my little boat with each passing day. I sail, hoping to find a new life.

Even if I survive this journey, will anyone find me alive? Will anyone care about how I survived? I'll probably be shut away. In a cell where they keep crazy people. Where they keep the ones with mental issues.

Entry #100

It's finally evening. After a small snack of leftover crackers, I have decided to write again. Maybe someone will find these journals I brought along, if they don't find me.

What's that saying? "Red sky at night, sailor's delight... red sky in morning sailors take warning." Well, it's a red sky tonight. A beautiful one.

One I'm alive to see. Being in the ocean, the middle of the ocean, I haven't seen life. I haven't seen people. I hardly have enough food to last me the next few days. The heat and cold drive me below the deck and I pray that I can survive another day. Pray that I'll make it through the ocean and make it to life again.

Whatever possessed me to travel alone, across the ocean, I've no idea. Perhaps I was just yearning for freedom. Maybe I wanted to escape the pain that I've endured for so long. Or perhaps I just wanted to prove I can survive.

Will I survive? Or will my want for freedom and adventure end in my death? Perhaps if I am not found, my survival story will be found in my journals. But then, I must be delirious. I was delirious enough to go out an adventure alone.

I'm going crazy. I must be. After all, how can I survive such an adventure as this? It was an insane idea, that I made possible. I did make it possible by surviving.

Survival is a part of freedom. Freedom includes survival. Yet my choice of freedom might be my death.