Incomprehensible.

What do you do when your mind stops being able to understand? Where do you go?

My mom gave me the news tonight at approximately 8:50 pm. I was walking to my car from ASL. I had just been thinking about him all day. I pulled my awareness bracelet out of my lunchbox and put it on, the green beads contrasting with the white of my skin. I typed in his name on Caring Bridge, and the site had been taken down. I texted my mom asking about it, and she responded with a phone call. I knew. I couldn't answer, because I was in class, but I knew it had to be bad if she couldn't answer the question in a text.

What do you do? What do you say? What do you think? Where do you go?

I sat in my car for a minute before I started driving away. I sat there and blasted the radio for a minute and screamed. I turned the volume down and made a single phone call to someone far away whose comfort I have often sought out when theres nothing left to fix.

But my head... it's been gone. I've been pacing back and forth. I've been laying restlessly in my bed, squeezing my Happy Bear, the bear I have had since I was a baby. I can't. I can't understand. I won't. I don't think I want to either.

I drift away. My mind floats to the lake. It floats off to the boat, and laying out in the sun feeling myself frying to a crisp. He and his sister are digging in the sand, and my sisters, my parents, my "aunt and uncle" are all roaming the yard, scattered relaxing. Our friends gather and we have the traditional Float Day. We laugh, we drink, we float, and we eat. We're all together. It's the place I go. It's home.



I can never get enough of the sun falling over the water, setting it on fire. Blazing red, orange, pink, and purple across the skies. The call of Larry, the resident loon. The bark of Macabe. The squeak of the chippers. The laughter. The happiness. That's where I go.

That's where my head is tonight. I'm not in my bed in Eagan. I'm up at the cabin. I'm floating. I'm floating because nothing else makes sense, and after all, Floating is a state of mind. It's a state of mind I don't want to leave. If I do... I have to think about it. I have to face it. I have to move on... and I'd rather just float for a while longer.

AFloatingEnglishMajor...