An Ocean's Birth
by Rebecca Williams

Every summer it was the same. Two weeks of precious holiday wasted on family time.
W hen I was little it was never so bad, I could spend all day with my bucket and spade digging for the creatures that left their wormy trails behind for me to squelch between my toes. And squelch they did, for the beaches we went to were never soft with golden sand. They were grey looking and had a peaty feel underfoot, and if you ever dug any deeper then two inches, the sand would be full of the sticky black swirls that I once tried to eat because my brother told me it was chocolate marble cake.

As I got older I found that there was no longer any pleasure in creating dams and forts to protect me from the incoming tide. I began to spend my time wondering up and down the promenade, hovering around the arcade eating soggy chips and avoiding my family as much as possible.

I never managed to make any friends. Once or twice I got chatting to some kids my age but they were local and had their own friends, with no interest in a holiday maker like me. There was no chance of me meeting any tourists of my age either, as anyone that ever went there on holiday was either under 5 or over 60. It was a grandparent/grandchild thing. Jake did once make a friend, but she was a girl and I think we only saw her once before he whisked her away and spent the rest of the holiday hiding out with her. When we did see him he seemed to wonder round in some crazy daze, with this stupid floppy smile stuck on his face. Which was good for me because in his stupefied state I managed to convince him I could be trusted enough to borrow his roller blades.

I wish I could have admitted I missed Jake once he turned 18 and became too old for family holidays, but from about the age of 12 he had considered himself much too mature to be playing with his little sister. So when he did finally stop coming with us it seemed no different to my previous holiday experiences of loneliness and boredom.

My parents just annoyed me, trying to get me involved in a game of tennis at the sea front courts, which was obviously where the local 'hooligans' hung out due to the evidence of fag ends, graffiti and the smell of urine. But my folks just can't see it, when they head down there in their white gym shorts, with their rackets that were only ever brought out of storage for those two weeks away. Then they would always return after half an hour, claiming one of them was suffering from a severe case of tennis elbow, or had ruptured a disk or was in concussion and then we would all have to spend the rest of the day recovering in that same room, in that same bed and breakfast that we'd stayed in since before I can remember. The room in which the shutters are stuck fast, but you can't turn on the air conditioning because it makes ridiculously rude noises that causes your mum to giggle and almost choke to death on her cranberry juice. So you all just sit there, getting hot and frustrated, watching ITV Wales because it's the only bloody channel you can get a good reception on without someone holding the aerial up from inside the en-suite.

In the end my only escape from it all was the sea. My mum always said I was a water baby. Even when I was tiny there was nothing I liked more then to be sat in that hideously yellow rubber ring of mine and splash about till I could splash no more, or at least till my mum got fed up and bribed me out with a promise of a 99 flake, which always ended up on the floor or in Jake.

But now I could swim on my own, without supervision or ice cream bribes. And God did I swim! I swam to be free, to get away from the living world and all its problems, conflicts, deadlines and tennis matches. To be rid of life's pressures and idealisms and to find self control. The sea doesn't have anyone telling it what to do, it holds the power and when I was pushing my body to its limits, driving myself forward through the waves and out into the calm beyond, I felt that I too, shared some of that power. That the sea and me were one, one mind and soul, separated from the rest of the world by the wall of waves the ocean had created, just so we could be together in our own peace. But I should have known that really, the ocean was the only one in control.

Last year I was feeling particularly moody, and had just succeeded in creating a very public out burst with my parents over whether or not I was allowed a henna tattoo. I argued that if I was old enough to legally smoke and have sex, then I was old enough to get a temporary tattoo. They're reply was to go very pink and tell me to stop being so childish.

It was late afternoon and I swam so far out that when I looked back at the bay it was a toy town. Its small cottages only visible because of the faded pastel washes the villagers had collaborated together in, to make the sea front as freakily cheery as possible. It was so beautiful; as though I was the only one alive in the whole world. No disgusting, intruding noise whatsoever, just a few birds in the distance and the comforting pulse of the mass of ocean that surrounded me. I tipped my head back and lay there with my eyes closed, feeling the sun beat down upon my face, listening to the rhythm of my own heart echoing in my ears. I was as content as I could ever be, feeling myself drifting with the rise and swell of the waves, knowing I was safe as I'd only been out for about an hour so the tide would be steadily taking me in.

I remember the deep, drunken feeling that came over me and those last blissful thoughts as they flitted from my mind. I woke with a jolt as something brushed the underneath side of my leg. There were the first few panicky seconds while I was disorientated and couldn't quite work out where I was. Then pure, hysterical, fear hit me as I quickly figured out that I was still at sea and the sun had set. In blind terror I began to strike out at the water, trying to swim in all directions at once in an attempt to get somewhere, anywhere. The atmosphere around me was a full, thick, nothingness that seemed to go on forever, and in the deathly calm water I was the only living thing, in what felt like a universe that had abandoned me completely. My frenzied state ended quickly, as it soon became apparent my freezing muscles were too numb to be of any use and only causing me to flounder, spluttering. I'm not sure how it happened, but I somehow managed to regain control of myself and stayed there for what seemed like an eternity, treading water as I tried to will the feeling back into my hands and feet. I don't know how your mind works in these situations, but I have very little memory of what I was thinking during all this, apart from the fact that I really wouldn't have minded a 99 flake and that I was no longer one with this big black monster, but rather a unwanted subject, caught in something far bigger then itself, that did not care to share any of its power.

Looking back on it now I realise I must have been in some sort of state of shock and could not have been thinking straight, because for some reason I was really bothered by the fact I couldn't remember which way I'd been facing when I woke up and was desperately trying to figure it out. I felt that if I manage to sort that out then I'd be well on my way to safely returning to shore. So I lay back and tried to figure out the position I was in as first regained consciousness.

Even though my body was frozen, I could still feel the warmth that struck as the waves enveloped the parts of me that had broken through the flawless surface of the rolling tides, making me want to sink deeper into the black depths just to escape the cold. As I lay still and unmoving the warmth slowly crept into my mind, muddying my thoughts. My wits turned misty and I giggled to myself at the complete irony of the whole situation, soon any idea of elsewhere had silently slipped away and I was once again left floating and alone in the vast and phenomenal ocean.

I remember watching my hair as it fanned out around me, the only thing darker then the sinister water which closed in tight around my pale body. I raised one of my stone cold hands, and watched the blue light rippling on the underside of my wrist, making it seem fantastically alien. Like I was already becoming part of another world. My eyes followed along the crest of my hand and settled on a radiant drip of water suspended from my finger tip. I watched it fall in slow motion, and listened to the sound it made as it broke on the water's moon-lit surface. But that glistening point remained, just below my finger's end.

In silence, save for my own heavy breaths, my dimly-lit mind recognised this as something from the outside world, the world that I needed to be part of if I wanted to survive. I wanted to cry as memories, which seemed a hundred years old, came flooding back. Thoughts from my life, a life I wanted to continue living, filled my mind, and all I wanted was to finish spending the rest of the week playing tennis, building forts, and eating soggy chips while watching ITV Wales. Then go home to see Jake, where I would begin to grow up, finish school, move away, get married and have a family of my own. All I wanted was to live! My mind was made up, no matter how cruel or strong this lake of misery claimed to be, it would have no part in the decision of whether I would continue to live or not.

Numbly I rolled onto my front and began to paddle forward with wooden limbs, never taking my eyes off that flashing star. I held no sense of time and would never be able to tell you how long I struggled for, but I can tell you that there were many a moment in which I almost submitted to defeat. When it got to a point when I really felt I could go no further, I realised I could already see more of the lights that were dotted along the shore, calling me to safety, and I knew I could not let go now after getting so far. The worst moments of it all were when I was only a hundred meters or so from the beach. My body was wracked with cramps, my fingers and toes curled and unable to open, I could hardly see in front of me and I was suffering from massive retching and coughing fits due to the salt water I had ingested.

I could no longer breathe and felt I had not one drop of energy left in my body. I became frustrated as my strokes grew weaker and weaker, and was left gasping and useless after only managing to gain a few yards. I eventually hit the breakwater. The same breakwater I'd been trying to avoid and break free of for all these years, the breakwater that had always seemed full of the mess and corruption I'd been trying to escape. It threw me around and broke me down, but it was now that mess and corruption that finally allowed me to give up and let my lifeless body be washed up onto dry land.

I was found lying on golden sand by a couple who'd been midnight skinny dipping, over 3 miles away from the bay where me and my parents had been staying. By the time the life guard and paramedics reached me I had no pulse, and had to be resuscitated 3 times before my heart would beat by itself.

Most people talk of tunnels and white light when they die, but all I experienced was darkness and then a blinding red pain as I burst back into life. I talked with my Nan about this sometime later because I was secretly terrified this meant I was either going to hell or would end up spending an eternity as nothing. But she assured me it was only because it was not my time, and my soul wasn't ready to experience that yet. I'd like to believe her.

I felt as though I'd been born again, it was as if I was being brought into the world for the first time, even though I knew I'd seen it all before. If you can remember your birth, everything about is incredibly significant and is engraved into your memories forever. I still dream of those first few images as the paramedic's face appeared through my grey haze of vision. Every smell and sound was so intense I know I will never be able to experience anything so deep ever again.

I spent over two weeks in hospital recovering. My parents never left my side, for which I am so grateful, and I now know I could never take them for granted again. Jake travelled down to visit me, and we both realised how much we missed and needed each other. Isn't it funny how something so terrible can create new webs of happiness in bringing what has been lost back together?

This year we're going to the Lake District on holiday, all four of us.