January 25th, 2021
There once was a dude on a ship.
He didn’t remember how he got there.
But he was in the middle of the sea, in the center of a storm that had been raging as far back as his memory could recall. The wind cut his cheeks and the rain soaked into him, pushing up feelings like guilt and regret, anger and deep despair. But instead of trying to find a way through the storm, or to face the feelings, he let the wind and the rain drown him, again and again.
He was scared, he didn’t know how to get out, and he sincerely didn’t think he could.
But he did. One day, he became so sick he threw up off the side of the ship, and it was enough to drive him back to the wheel, to give it a honest shot through the dark. He struggled. He steered close to jagged rocks and sirens and Death herself. But along the way, fragments of stars and particles of sunshine would offer glimpses to another world.
And then it happened. It was late at night. He felt like he was in the middle of nowhere when the ship abruptly stopped. He had reached the shore.
He was saved.
He looked to his left. There was an empty lighthouse. To his right, a stone path to a warm cottage. He realized that he was already saved, and if he wanted to, he could walk to the cottage and enjoy the rest of his life.
But.
When he was on the water, there were no lighthouses for him. He saw that he could potentially be that lighthouse for somebody else.
There once was a dude on a ship.
What he did once he got off defined who he would be.
The Den 