In this chapter, I’m brave
Toe to toe with my greatest fear
I don’t win every battle
But I won’t fail.
In this chapter, I’m awake
Thawed from the ice
Turned inside out
Not a beginning, a reclaiming.
In this chapter, I take it all back
The life I said I didn’t deserve
Because in this chapter,
I suffocate the me I created for protection.
The Frankenstein of my own making
The Freddy of my own nightmares
A vicious chameleon
‘Undeserving’
‘Too broken to be happy’
‘Not worth saving’
The narrative dies with her
Because in this chapter,
I remember I’m the author.

Dear Unsealers,
It’s still dark outside when I click off my alarm. The air conditioner above the bed suggests I pull the covers up and roll over but, without hesitation, I swing my feet to the cold tile. Bathing suit on. Hair pulled back at the nape of my neck. Without breaking stride, I grab my dive watch and bandana and head to the dock. Thick heat from yesterday’s sun still hangs in the early morning air. The world is quiet, but Bonaire’s winds are thick with whispers. I know others are awake and waiting for me to take them diving. So, I savor the last seconds of solitude before rounding the bend to see whose nerves roused them out of bed before me.
I’ve been coming to Bonaire since I was 8 years old. I’m 30 and have been leading this dawn dive since I was 13. Between 5:30 and 5:40am, this time of year, the black sky is barely touched by dark blue. The first hint that the sun will rise. That’s when we hit the water. The first 25 minutes is a night dive. Dropping down to float above the reef, I spy a few small schools of fish. Not nocturnal by nature, early risers. I turn to kick against the current and think, why would fish get up so early? Nothing to do but swim, eat, and relieve themselves; I wouldn’t wake up until 10am. Or would I?
My flashlight breezes over arrow crabs, tarpons, and eels. Night hunters. My mind wanders in the silence until I see it. The shallows have begun to change color. Sunrise underwater. It happens slow at first, then all at once. The night dwellers disappear to their slumber and the world down here comes alive. My steady breath is the soundtrack to an entire ecosystem called to life by the sun. It’s an evolution that awakens your joy and waters your hope. To see it is to be reminded that there is beauty and wonder and magic in us and around us, every day. To see it is to believe in galaxies beyond our imagination and the possibility of better for our small corner of it all. It’s an experience that imprinted on me at the age of 13 and years later still calls me out of bed in the earliest hours of the morning, like those few small schools of fish.