Sailing the Long Island Sound

Like the last blog entry, I’m fighting. But my fight has changed. I’ve gone from a fight with the external powers-that-may-be to an internal fight with my own emotions. I’m battling, and I’m battling hard. I’m amidst the most difficult fight of my life, and I’m fighting the hardest I’ve ever fought. And y’know what? I’m going to win this fight. It’s not the fight I wanted to win a week ago when I posted my battle-cry, but it’s a fight that I will not lose. It’s a fight I cannot lose.

No use in being archaic. Those who know me well enough know I’m fighting depression. And those who don’t know me well enough and read my blog anyway, well, no use in hiding it. Mental health in this society carries an unfair stigma. Its earned a reputation it doesn’t deserve. It’s something everyone has to battle with at one point or another…or so I’m told. And I, being in the music world, have found that every single one of my mentors, teachers, and friends have had to deal with their own depression at one point or another. Most have to revisit it at least once a year.

This is the second time this year that I’m battling. I’m fighting harder than last time, and I think I’m going to win quicker, too. Partially because this time, my friends are in my corner giving me great advice. (They were in my corner then, too, but I’m a lot more open about it now. And this time, we have a definite tipping point, whereas the last time, it just sort of happened.) And I have amazing friends. In fact, this entire post thus-far was a long-winded introduction to the advice I was given last night.

“Have I ever told you my dad's theory to boating? Or rather how my dad knows where every rock in Long Island Sound is?”
“No...”
“He knows where they are cause he's hit them all at least twice.”

So here I am, going through my own personal Long Island Sound. I’m hitting every rock right now. The hard part is patching up my proverbial hull after the damage from the rocks. Damage is going to happen – and it’s going to happen a few times. And as long as I keep sailing, I’m going to hit a few more rocks along the way. But I’m learning how to patch the holes faster and better. And I’m learning where at least a few of the rocks are so I know not to hit them again. (Or at least I’ll try not to. Which is all I can ever promise myself without lying.)

I’m confident in myself, though, because this trip through The Sound isn’t going to keep me from sailing again. Some have their hull damaged so much that they decide they are giving up sailing and leaving their boat on shore. Some decide that they don’t want to sail the same place again, since they got hurt there once and would rather go find rock-free waters. (Those people usually find that there’s no such thing as a Sound without rocks.)

I’m going to take a step outside of the proverbial world and back into the literal one, with my own sailing experience. I mean that literally.

The first time I ever stepped foot into a sailboat was the summer I was 8 years old. It was my third summer at camp, and I’d never been sailing. I wasn’t entirely sure why. I decided one day, probably because my counselor recommended it when archery or ropes was full, to go sailing. We sailed Sunfishes on a pond. Small boats, small body of water…actually a kind of high wind day – or at least that’s what my memory tells me. Peter, the head of the sailing program took me in his boat. Him, me, and one other camper probably around my own size. (Three people in a Sunfish, even small people, is not always the easiest and most comfortable thing, by the way.) While my 8-year-old counterparts on Long Pond loved the adventure and excitement of fast gliding across the water, I was scared out of my mind. Every gust of wind, I held on for dear life, praying that the boat wouldn’t tip. I got back to the beach, I was relieved not to have needed to take an unexpected swim. I swore that the land was the place for me. Peter, however, told me that he’d get me back out another time.

I was 8 years old and somehow decided that I wanted Peter to be a male role-model for me, someone who normally gravitated towards female adults, always having been close with my mother and not really understanding my father (who was always at work). (Incidentally, Peter is the first male role-model I really remember, and 13 years later, I still say he was one of my three favorite counselors of all time in my 13 summers at camp as a camper.) This was enough for me to decide I wanted to sail the entire next week.

Peter saw me there on Monday, and after assigning a counselor to each camper, or more accurately two or three campers to each counselor, took me and my then-best-friend Jake Levine for himself. Within days, I loved to be out on the water. I was still afraid to capsize, but not afraid of sailing. I didn’t let the fear get in the way of fun. Did I mention that I became a really good sailor and was on pace to be one of the youngest to ever finish the awards program at camp? (I stopped because it no longer became fun after Peter’s successor left.)

And that’s how I’m sailing through my proverbial Long Island Sound. I know that I can’t keep myself from hitting rocks, and rocks hurt – a lot, but I’m going to patch up the holes, remember how I did it, try to remember where some of the rocks were, and sail through again…and again and again.

So, to you, Long Island Sound in my soul, I say this:
The HMS Yellen will sail again.

But right now, I’m patching some holes in the hull.

Anyone have any spare fiberglass?