Above the deep

There have been days when I could feel the weight of the world pressing against my shoulders, as if gravity wasn’t just a force but a memory of everything that ever hurt me. There were moments when I thought I would sink and never rise again, when emotions pulled like tides too strong to fight, when all I could do was keep my head barely above the surface and hope the waves would eventually calm. I used to believe that drowning happened all at once, but now I know it can happen slowly too — quietly, invisibly, inside the mind.

I’ve lived inside the deep before. That place where thoughts turn heavy, where silence feels like pressure, where pain doesn’t need words to make itself heard. Down there it’s dark, and time feels distorted. Hours stretch endlessly, hope thins, the heart forgets how to trust life. Down there, it’s easy to believe that the world is small and there’s no way out. Easy to think the current will keep dragging me backward forever.

But something inside me refused to stay buried. A spark, a sound, a memory — I don’t even know what started it. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was love. But suddenly I found myself kicking upward, fighting for air I wasn’t even sure was waiting for me. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t confident. It was desperate, messy, raw — but it was movement. And sometimes movement is enough to save you.

Climbing out of the deep wasn’t quick. There were days when I rose higher only to slip back down. There were days when just existing felt like survival. There were days when I convinced myself the darkness was returning when really I was just afraid of living without it. I didn’t trust the light at first — didn’t trust that peace could stay, didn’t trust that happiness wasn’t a trick, didn’t trust that joy wouldn’t vanish the moment I reached for it. The deep teaches suspicion. But the climb teaches faith.

Slowly, the water around me lightened. I began to see the world beyond the pain. I started to breathe again — not perfectly, not confidently, but freely. And then one day I realized something powerful: I was no longer fighting to stay above the deep. I was rising above it. Not because the deep had disappeared, but because I had learned how to stay afloat no matter how strong it tried to pull me down.

Now when the darkness calls, I hear it differently. I don’t panic the way I used to. I don’t assume sinking is inevitable. I know the deep exists inside me, but I also know the light does too. The two can coexist without one defeating the other. I no longer have to fear my heavy days — I just have to remember that they don’t define me.

The deep still whispers, but I rise louder. The waves still move, but I stand steadier. The currents still tug, but I know how to swim through them instead of letting them carry me. I am not free from pain — I am stronger than it. I am not untouched by struggle — I am shaped by it. I am not someone who never sank — I am someone who learned to rise.

And above the deep, the world looks different. The sky feels bigger, the body feels lighter, the heart feels possible. I see the person I’ve become — not flawless, not unscarred, but alive. Surviving wasn’t the end. Rising was. And now I’ll rise again and again, every time the deep tries to call me back.

I used to think staying above the deep was luck.
Now I know — it was strength.