The Gap

Come along on a journey with me as I torture more metaphors to get a moot point across. I’ll try to be more more brief, this is just a thought that occured to me the other day.

Are you claustrophobic? Maybe, maybe not. I can’t speak for you. But I can say that I’m not particularly claustrophobic myself. (I will admit I have an irrational fear of waking up in a coffin, buried alive.) It’s not hard to see where the fear comes from though. You’re being confined, not able to move, the world turning inward, a weight is on you from all sides. You can’t escape, panic sets in, and suddenly even the air is too thick to breathe. I think my heartrate just spiked. The other day a few of my friends and I went spelunking. That word makes it sound like we know what we’re doing. Really we just grab some flashlights and go explore some cave system or another. We’d been through this particular cave a few times before. It’s nothing big, maybe an hour to the bottom and an hour back. But we didn’t go all the way down today. One of our party, who is claustrophobic, was getting a little rattled. However, besides exiting the cave with the usual bruises and scrapes, I also left with a new thought. You see, there’s a part in this cave where you squeeze through a pretty small gap. You lay on your back and pull yourself through to the other side using your arms. But there’s a catch; the easiest way through is to exhale and let out all of your breath so that you can fit through. You have to commit and completely pull yourself through (or back out) before you can take any real breaths again. It’s nerve wracking the first time, but you get over it. Again, I can’t speak for you, but you might be thinking: “Why the hell would you do something like that?” The answer is simple, you do it to get to the other side. Of course there’s the adrenaline and all that but the real reward is being able to look behind you and say, “Yes, I made it through.” Is this starting to sound familiar to any of you? A crushing weight is on you, you can’t breathe, you’re trying to pull yourself free. Ringing any bells? I think this metaphor could probably suit most difficult situations, but I think it’s especially apt for coming out. Or at least I imagine so, I’ve yet to pull myself out and breathe the free air. Seeing as there’s really no way to back out now the only way to go is forward. And just like that gap in the cave, nobody can stay there forever. You’d suffocate, I’m suffocating. I can’t live another year stuck between this rock and a hard place. I’m not sure if I’ll make it. There are times that you have you have to just pull yourself out so that you can taste the free air. And from what I hear, it’s supposed to taste pretty sweet.