Breaking the Surface

Last night I dreamt I was at a big pool, a pool I didn't recognize, with a bunch of female friends. The friends were mostly in the pool already, far from where I stood on the edge. They beckoned me to come join them. I took the plunge and dove in, but as I turned up to surface, I found that some force was keeping me down. I concentrated all my strength into turning my head up and moving toward the surface, but it was like it was iced over: I absolutely couldn't break through. I was getting lost in the blue, beginning not to know which way was up or down, which way had air. I finally backed up and found a place where I could surface, and came gasping up for air. My first emotion was fury, fury with the owner of the pool for not more clearly outlining the dangerous sections of the pool. Then I looked over to my friends, still so far away in the center of the pool, and wondered why I was the only one who had had trouble getting in the pool, had run into such danger. And I wondered how, and whether, I would ever make it to where they were.

So I guess right now, I'm in the middle of my dive, waiting to see whether I'll have trouble surfacing again, whether I'll run into the cruel, unyielding ice, or whether I'll gracefully, effortlessly break the surface and begin to breath again.