Old but Relevant Issues

this story is about only one person and because i have 471 facebook friends the odds are that it isn't you.

sometimes your opinions were a lot like the last few pieces of an ikea desk: immediately useless and only there to make me doubt myself.

it started with you promoting the impossible, promising a hidden world if only we pushed the limits. i liked that-- i liked finding new truths by testing old rules-- but it wasn't what i had been promised.

you were a shallow pool of water, beckoning to me, flaunting the tasty idea of jumping from a two-story building and diving head-first into your warm waters.

i remember standing on the edge of that building thinking about a million reasons why this couldn't be done and why it shouldn't be done.

but ultimately, all i saw was the adventure and your waters.

so i jumped.

and during that four second fall, the wind threw itself through my hair and pulled at my face, almost as if it were trying to stop me from going too fast. i should've known i was plummeting toward a horrible demise, but something about the air and the speed made me feel just as though i were flying.

but i was definitely falling. i was falling quick.

and when your warm waters greeted me, it was not long before the cement bottom of your shallow pool greeted me as well. except that bottom was not nearly as friendly as the top had appeared.

i was hurt bad.

and i never thought this would happen to me.

but after it all, i owe you a thank you. this is not a thank you for the times i thought i was flying but was really being pulled to a horrible end and this is not a thank you for allowing me to be graced by your shimmery, dishonest, manipulative waters.

no. but this is a thank you-- a better thank you-- nonetheless.

i thank you for creating such a believable mirage with such an unbelievable punishment that i have since learned to dip my feet in pools of water to see if they might be safe before i dive in head-first. it took a long fall and cranial damage for me to learn that i can't just go after every thing that looks exciting-- that sometimes exciting is not nearly reliable or accommodating.

i thank you for painfully teaching me to stop acting on my impulses and i thank you for reminding me that even good swimmers cannot dive into shallow pools without getting hurt.

but know if i ever run into you and your shallow waters, there will be no dives or talk of dives. no. i will use you like any shallow pool should be used: as a very pretty toilet.