In part one of this entry, I stepped to the water.

Now, I step away.

Jaw muscles unclench. Skin scrunched around eyes droop.

I backed away from the water, a kid staring down his dream as if it were a grizzly with a salmon.

Fuck you anyway.

Fuck You anyway.

Fuck You Anyway!

“Hey, where ya going?”

“I DOR.”

“What?”

“I D.O.R! I drop on request.”

“Because your mask?”

“Where do I go?”

“Go?”

“I drop on request.”

Severity settled his eyes. For the first time since my arrival in Coronado, someone found wonder in my existence. That made my decision feel correct.

“Tell the instructors.”

I walked away.

No one tried to stop me, no one said my name. In truth, I’m certain they didn’t know my name. I was a kid. One more expendable asset expended.

Fewer mouths to feed, fewer wounds to salve.

When I looked back, I saw candidates’ backs as they filed down the wash into the bay.

I did not belong.

That felt real, it felt certain, and it felt undeniable.

I walked up to the Princesses’ white truck. Windows raised. The instructor in the driver’s seat had his back to me. I knocked on the window. He turned. Annoyed. Eyeballed me. Rolled down the window. Slow and only halfway.

“Yeah?”

“I DOR.”

“What?”

It occurs to me, just now, that the repetitive nature of the DOR conversations must have been designed. A confusion barrier to make an addled candidate wake up before speaking a three-letter sea change.

“I drop on request.”

The instructor slowed down. I could feel the full weight of his attention, although I could not see his eyes through the, apparently, government issued Oakleys.

“Get in.”

I climbed into the extended cab of the sketchy white truck. Shivering. Two instructors in the truck. Neither said much. They had on sweatshirts, comfortably sitting in the truck with the heat on.

A moment ago, my fin tips touched the turd water of the San Diego Bay. Now. Three letters and a bunch of “what’s” and “uhs” later, I sat in the back of a rancher style truck, heat bringing back my humanity.

“Was it the rain?”

I think a moment. “Not really. My mask broke.”

“What?”

“No one had another.”

“Your mask broke?”

“Yeah.” The silence told me they expected more. I offered it. “The wait didn’t help.”

“Yeah?” They both giggled.

The passenger Princess of Pain asked if the training had changed me in any way. An unexpected sincerity in his question.

In hindsight, I think he envied me as much as I envied him. He did not understand the “I” that was me. Did he envy me my freedom?

“Yeah. It did.”

“How?”

“I don’t care about physical fitness anymore.”

“Yeah? A couple years will pass. You’ll be back at it again.”

“No, I won’t. I will never jog another mile or swim another lap. I’m done.”

For some reason they both got a kick out of that answer.

Teeth chattering, I disappeared into their small talk: wife, kids, plans.

Both instructors expressed shock at the speed of the swim. I felt a moment of undeserved pride, because I knew, had I been in the water, I would have held that pace.

But I would worry of that no longer.

Or, I would worry of that . . . forever.

My teeth stopped chattering.

I respected those instructors like I respected my high school football coach. I understood them, but I could not be them, no matter how hard I tried.

I asked something about ringing the bell. They made it seem like an “oh yeah, the bell” moment. They made it clear that I could walk back to the Naval Special Warfare compound if I wanted. So, I did. Happy to exit the vehicle.

The clouds were in a funny way as I walked back. Thick, heavy, and ominous. Golden around the edges where the sun peeked around broken cloud. Noah’s sky after the flood. A tragedy woven with a ray of hope.

I felt new. Like a young man rose from the altar of his Appalachian church on a Sunday morning. A vision that means something in the mountains of North Carolina. Maybe nothing to anyone else. But for those that carry a curiosity, such feelings are fleeting. And they’re rare.

That’s a portrait of me walking away.

Thirty years since, I am still walking back to me.

Any person that’s quit something important will recognize this walk.

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