TSUNAMI

This essay is not so much about a defining moment but rather about a recurring dream that I have had for years. From 10th-12^th grade I attended Connetquot High School in Long Island NY and I have always thought that I lucked out with my graduating class. Contrary to the classes directly above and below me, my class was very close knit and we would routinely hang out in large groups. The dream is very odd in that it involves every person in my graduating class, and the amount of time each person spends in my dream seems to be directly related to the strength of the relationship I had with them back in HS. The dream has remained fairly consistent but my interpretation of it has changed over the years.

It starts with me and a few of my close friends on a completely barren beach, come to think of it it’s really just a large sandbar out in the middle of the ocean. The bright white sand bar is about a half mile long and 200 yards wide and completely devoid of any vegetation, just 2 or 3 straw huts collected toward it’s center. Around this little oasis is nothing but calm, aqua blue, ocean as far as the eye can see in every direction. The sky is always perfectly clear and it always takes place during sunset, when the sun is a deep blood orange and as close to the horizon as possible while still remaining a perfect visible circle.

My girlfriend and I, along with a few of our very close friends, are all lying on our backs propped up on our elbows just making small talk and horsing around. The tide nearly touches our feet as the small rolling waves stretch to reach as far up the beach as they can, then get pulled back into the blue abyss as if attached to rubber bands. Just under the setting sun there is an enormous swell of water that stretches out across the horizon, we all know it’s a tsunami but nobody seems to care as we don’t even mention it to one another. As the wave creeps closer we continue to joke with one another and I feel as happy as any dream has ever made me feel.

After what seems like about a half hour I stand up and leave my group of friends to go walk around the island as I need to say my goodbye’s to the rest of my class before the wave reaches us. Some of them in the straw huts and others strolling about the shoreline, but I find them all in the same groups that were established in my real life high school. It feels great to catch up with everyone as we all joke around and talk about life after high school. Eventually I notice that the wave is twice as close as it was before and I make my way back to my girlfriend and company. Once I lay back down in the sand next to the people who are closest to me we all just watch the wave grow larger and larger, and strangely enough I still feel absolutely incredible, I’m on cloud nine. As the wave closes in it gets larger and larger until it is about a hundred feet away and maybe 300 feet high, totally blocking out the sun. As the shadow falls on us we all exchange glances that seem to say “OK, see you on the other side”. And it’s at this moment that I get a very odd feeling which seems to be blissful excitement about reaching “the other side” (whatever that may be), and despite repeating the dream several times I am totally unable to pinpoint what is so exciting about being swallowed by this enormous wave.

When I first had the dream it was obvious to me what it meant, I was finally graduating secondary school and the future was uncertain, yada-yada. But now that I have had the dream several times 4 years after graduation I think it takes on a new meaning. The dream seems to be a therapy for me during very stressful times. The sense of relaxation and happiness I feel during the dream always resonates pretty significantly for the rest of that week, I feel calmer and am able to handle whatever workload I have a little more efficiently. But most importantly is the comforting feeling I get that “everything is going to be OK”. Whether ‘everything’ is referring to the specific problem I am feeling at the time or life itself is a mystery to me, but as I grow older it seems more and more like the latter.