Sink or Swim

The South Korean ferry disaster was over a month ago. But, through reasons of internet maze making, I found myself reading about the accident and looking at this illustration of how the boat slowly turned then capsized.

I read translated text messages from some of the students - which you can see here. While doing so, I found it hard to breath. The text messages, especially, got me imagining all of these students trapped inside a boat and then the boat underwater. It makes you claustrophobic to just think of what all those innocent and obedient people suffered. One student writes to his father explaining there is no way for him to get off the sinking ship. And it kills me to read this and to know that this person had enough time to message their father, but no ability to save himself - that there was an awareness in many of these students, but nothing they could do with that awareness.

I hope that this doesn't seem to make light of the loss so many South Korean families suffered, but because I am always thinking about alcoholism and what I am going to do for myself and for my daughter given the circumstances of my husband's drinking, I couldn't help but think of myself and my daughter as passengers on this ship - not the Sewol - but a ship my husband and I started creating when we got married. (This metaphor is especially apt because during our wedding ceremony we had a friend read Kay Ryan's poem, "We're Building the Ship as We Sail It").

What I am thinking now is that the boat is tilted 60 degrees. All three of us are at the beginning of this ship wreak, and I can't trust my husband to fix the ship. It doesn't seem that he notices its tilting, or notices it and isn't alarmed, he isn't as concerned with the cold water rushing in over all of our feet. I am putting on my daughter's life jacket, my own jacket and I am waiting to see if he understands the dire situation his drinking and lying has put us in. But maybe that isn't even being completely honest - quite possibly I am not even putting on the jackets, I am just looking to him for signs that he understands and is going to address things.

I'm terrified that I will stay on the boat with him, that I'll keep my daughter on the boat with him, and then alcoholism will capsize us. I won't say it is my husband, because he would not drown us - the disease would.

I believe in him as a person, in the man who I decided to build this ship with, but I can't trust his judgement right now, even though he went to a meeting tonight and says he hasn't drank in almost two weeks. And I don't want to be on a boat partly under water, always vigilant for the last moment to flee, to hop in a life boat before it all sinks. I don't even know that it will sink, he could stay sober, but I don't know that he will stay sober. And I feel like an idiot for not already getting myself and my daughter ashore.