(💸- I’m 12, constructive criticism will be much appreciated haha)

I shudder as the memory brings back others that I don’t want to remember. I vowed I’d never come back here and yet, there I was, back in Sweden, staring into the dark, ghostly waters of the lake where I almost died. It was probably only dark and ghostly to me though. As I looked over to my friends, I noticed how happy and carefree they looked, sitting on a picnic blanket by the deck. Jocelyn was laughing, Marie doing a little dance to celebrate us all being together, and Elizabeth telling them to pose for a selfie.

I’ll never forget how it happened. I remember it so vividly, just as it was four years ago. I was ten years of age and stupidly leaning over the deck edge. My dad calls me and I turn around to see that he caught a fish. Quite a big one, too. It’s mouth is still opening and closing, gasping for the oxygen it wasn’t getting out of water. It was writhing. It was revolting to me, even though I ate fish. Just seeing them like that was so much more different than eating them cooked and with lemon, like mom made. He brought it closer and closer and I made a sudden movement backwards, falling, back first into the water.

As I plunged into the dark depths of water, I suppose my life really did flash before my eyes. I remembered the swimming lessons I refused to take because the swimming cap ‘made my head hurt’. I remembered the lemon fish my mom made that I’d never get to eat again, and I remembered Luna, our puppy we left at home that I never got to say goodbye to. I remembered about a hundred other things in those two seconds but you’d probably take quite a longer time to read them. I had to swim up. I had to just go upwards.

Through my struggles, I let out my last breath of precious oxygen that I had left in my lungs. I heard my dads muffled screams. I had no breath left to scream even though I wanted to. Before I knew it, I saw the frothy bobbles as my dad jumped into the water. ‘I never knew I was so hopeless at swimming’, I thought. At the pool I could stay afloat, even if with a bit of struggle. I lose all hope as I see him, at least 10 feet above me trying to swim downward but failing. He still had air in his lungs. That was what was keeping him afloat. I remember wishing I could tell him. Maybe I could.

With every ounce of energy I had left in me, I pointed to my chest and heaved out a tiny bubble. My last, my only hope. Gone. My dad seemed to understand and he let go of all the air he had in him. I must have passed out because next thing I knew, I was puking goodness knows what right on the spot where Elizabethan sitting right then. As I looked toward her, she said, “Joan! Come on over, we need a picture with you, too!”

I gave in. After all, one day we’ll all leave this world behind. Maybe let’s not take life too seriously. After all, I was the one who came back to the most traumatic place for me just for a trip with my friends.