Had I Known How to Save A Life

My Wife is amazing.  Since I'm trying to remain anonymous, I think I will just refer to her as A from here on out.  A.  That's what all the cool people do, right?

A and I decide to go to Asbury Park this past Saturday.  We get there right after 5pm (we live pretty close so sometimes we go on a whim) .  The beach is still incredibly crowded but we found a spot a little bit north of the Paramount and set up camp.  We were surprised to see that the lifeguards were still on duty, but we decided it was better to just lay there and veg out for a bit instead of jumping right in.
Around 6ish, the lifeguards call for everyone to get out of the water as their day was soon ending.  CRAP!  We missed it!  Right?  No.  A and I are basically crazy, so we don't mind swimming after the lifeguards have gone.  We wait a little bit since Asbury Park is absolutely NOTORIOUS for having the guards ride around on buggies after they've cleared the water and chase all the illegal swimmers out of the water.
After enough time had passed, A and I decided to wade into the warmer-than-usual water.  I guess we started a trend as others decided to join us as well.  Anita and I were splashing around and swimming and having our fill when we hear some faint noises coming from the distance.  We casually look around the water and see the few people in the water that seem to be enjoying themselves and we do the same.  A is not the strongest swimmer on the planet and while she's tough as nails, she doesn't like to go beyond the point where she can safely touch the bottom without being submerged.  I don't have a problem with that even though I tease her about it.  We're enjoying the temperature of the water when again, we hear a faint sound in the distance.  We both look over and about 30 yards away from us, we see a couple that is pretty far out and it looks like they're splashing each other.  When we focused on them, we realized that they were screaming and calling for help!  Holy shit!  I didn't know what to do.  A and I started wading over to them as fast as we could and when we confirmed that they were indeed screaming help, A screams, "Go!  Go and help them!  Go!"  When I got close enough to them and my eyes locked with the man swimming, I couldn't see any sense cognition.  He was completely panicked and was flailing in the water.  His girlfriend or his wife or whoever she was tried to plead with him to calm down and get it under control, but he couldn't.  I'm not even sure he could hear her over the panic in his own head.  I quickly grabbed his hand and tried to pull him towards the shore line.  He was NOT cooperating.  He kept screaming, "I can't!  I can't!" and wouldn't stop.  I looked back at him and told him that he's gotta kick to help me.  At this point, his GF wasn't helping much either.  The current here was pulling really hard and they were both completely gasped and were paralyzed by fear.  I looked at her and told her that we ALL need to kick so that I can help pull us all ashore.  I tried pulling the two of them for what felt like an eternity when I felt the aching of fatigue in my legs.  We'd made some progress to the point where I can plant the tips of my toes in the sand, but by no means were we safe.  I tried to reason with the man saying that he can put his feet down but he continued to just fight me.  Then it happened.  I let go of him.  I let his hand go and started floating to try and catch my breath.  For the first time since I grabbed his hand, my face was turned towards him and I saw the fear on his face and I heard his gf screaming.  They thought that I gave up.  I'm not sure I didn't.
Just as I was steadying myself in the water, someone else jumped into the water with a boogie board and made his way towards us.  I was relieved.  I thought it was over, I was wrong.  They boogie board was given to the panicking man, but this new swimmer could not bring them in.  The panic was too much.  He couldn't hear anyone asking for him to kick.  For him to help save his own life.  He just kept flailing and screaming.  I've never felt lucky in my life, but as luck would have it that day, I had pulled the two people far enough and with the new swimmer, I could firmly plant my feet, reach out for the new swimmer and pull them towards me.  Two more tugs and we were all shore.
How long did it take?  2 minutes?  5 minutes?  An hour?  An Eternity.  When I realized that they might have been in trouble, I lost all conscious thought.  I was running on instinct.  When I let go, it was instinct.  Am I so selfish?  Did I value my own life over these people?  Was I ok with that?  What if the boogie board had never arrived?  Would I have rested for a minute and reached back out for them?  I don't know the answer to these questions and they continue to haunt me.
After we came ashore, the boogie board man bolted back towards the restaurant inside the Paramount building.  The panicked man raised his slumping head, looked at me, shook my hand, and then just left.  He and his lady friend ran off the beach like their parking had expired 5 minutes ago.  Everything he wanted to say to me was in that look he gave me.  Fear, appreciation, confusion, and exhaustion all rolled into one.  I was greeted on the shores by an older woman who put her hands together (as if in prayer) and looked at me and said "thank you, " another woman came up to me and told me that what I had just done was incredible and that she couldn't do anything because she didn't know how to swim and that she can't believe I just did that.  I couldn't believe it, either.
A met me back by our camp with a look of amazement on her face.  She exclaimed, "My hero!" and I just chuckled.  I didn't feel like a hero.  I was full of so much adrenaline that I couldn't sit down.  I was exhausted, my legs were KILLING me, but I couldn't sit down.  I kept walking around our umbrella haunted by the image of me letting them go.  The looks on their faces when they saw me floated free of them.  The uncertainty of whether or not I would've tried to keep pulling them if the boogie board man had not intervened and bailed me out..  Was I a hero?  Or was I just lucky?  A tells me not to obsess over that part of it because if I had gotten tired out there, I would've been no help to anyone, and that she was confident that I would've grabbed them again after I had caught my breath.  Like I said, my wife is an amazing person.
When I was finally able to sit down, I was overcome.  I mean, just in incredulity of what had just transpired swept over me like the ocean waves in front of me.  I don't remember thinking anything.  I just remember acting.  It was almost like an out of body experience.  As I'm recalling the events now, I'm seeing myself in third person.  Absolutely crazy.
I'm puzzled by my actions and them being defined as heroic.  People keep telling me that I am a hero, but I don't feel like one.  I've never been good at taking credit for accomplishments because I'm not used to it.  I try and do as many good deeds as I can, but I'm not sure I'm a good person.  I grew up in a situation where the easy way out was usually the route I was attracted to and I can still feel that tug on me.  That's just how I grew up.  But those stories will have to wait for another time.  For now, if you're looking to swim at Asbury Park, please do so only when the lifeguards are on duty.  I'm all out of saves for the month.

Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself...

As I was saying before, I basically always have a trillion things going on in my head that I would like to get down, but I'm always afraid of the retribution I would get for blowing up other people's spots or the shame I would feel for revealing some of my most intricate weaknesses.

First and foremost, I'm a mid-30s man living in NJ.  I identify greatly with The Garden State but I also understand the gripes that people have with it.  I also think that people that don't live here or haven't lived here just don't get it and that's basically the end of it.  The slogan for NJ has the great distinction of being both cliche and true, only the strong survive.  We've got unbelievable traffic, incredibly high taxes, a history of political corruption, it's basically illegal everywhere to make a left turn,  and worst of all, Snooki (though, we don't actually claim her).  And what do we ask in return for all these maladies?  Just don't make us pump our own gas.  That's all we want.  Well, that and the greatest beaches on the east coast.  And some of the best pizza on the planet.  And a community of unusually loyal friends you meet very early on in life.. And some of the best public school systems in the nation..  Wait a minute.. This New Jersey place doesn't sound so bad after all.... Exactly.

Second, I'm South Asian.  I won't specify exactly where in South Asia I'm from because I fear it may be too revealing, but it's also an enormous part of who I am and what I'm proud of.  That wasn't always true.  When others were finding themselves in their teenage years, I was basically running away from myself trying to fit in.  I tried everything I could to seem less South Asian and for a time, I thought it worked and I thought I was happy with my self image.  Fortunately, even if a little later than everyone else, I figured it out for the most part.  Am I super South Asian now?  Not really.  I'm exactly what I should be as an American.  A mixture of both my own family heritage as well as the various communities and environments that have led me to where I am today.

Third, I'm a cancer survivor.  I had a rare blood disorder that was cured through the aid of a stem cell transplant a few years ago.  I have had and continue to see absolutely incredible doctors that tried everything they could to avoid me having to have the transplant, but in the end, there was nothing more that they could do.  They thought my age and being so young would save me from some of the more difficult complications, but alas, I was stricken with some nasty Graft Versus Host Disease (GVHD) afterwards and while my blood is as healthy as it has ever been, I'm still dealing with the shadows of the transplant.  I'm hoping (and all signs point to) that this is the last summer that I will have to worry about any of this stuff and that I will be able to get back to me.

Fourth, I'm a nerd.  Or a geek, or more accurately, both.  I like science and astronomy, I played RPGs before they were digitized with graphics and better marketing.  I liked Star Trek (Team Picard!) before liking Star Trek was cool.  In fact, the fact that Star Trek is cool kind of annoys me.  Where the heck were all you assholes when I was 15 and being made fun of?  Oh wait, you were the onesh making fun of me. I guess I would consider myself a reformed geek of sorts, though.  While I do love all things geek, as I got into my later teen years and especially my early 20s, I fell in love with sports.  I love baseball, football, basketball, and ice hockey and attend games regularly.  I'm THAT guy in the stadium that can get his entire section going.  I'm basically the best of both worlds.  I can quote Star Wars and can read a box score.  I play fantasy video games and fantasy baseball - both to the chagrin of my beautiful wife.

Fifth and finally, well finally in the sense that it's the last thing that I'm going to write (type?!) about tonight, I'm one of those douchy, community loving, gov't program loving liberal.  I voted for Obama (4 times!).  I feel like it's important that I include that here because I'm sure that plenty of what I write about is going to be in response to what's going on in the political world.  I think in more sane times, I would actually be closer to a Rockefeller Republican, but since Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin exist solely to make sure the GOP exorcises any HINT of moderation, I guess this is the world we live in now.

So, this is me.  Or at least this is the framework.  I'm hoping that the anonymity this new venture affords me allows me to go back over some of the memories I've been trying to parse in my mind and gives me the freedom to examine them more broadly without having to worry about who's reading it and what they will think.  It will be my own silent reverie.

At My Most Beautiful

Sometimes when I want to write, I'm afraid that I will be judged because people know who I am. This is my chance to try and reflect on my life and (finally)  cut through the fog.