When I Hear The Word "Hiatus"

Every time I hear the word "hiatus," if it's in the next 10 minutes or anytime in the future, I will think of all I've accomplished here.

I took this hiatus and essentially declared independence from those who would clamor after me, those who would make demands on my time, and those who expect much while giving little in return.

Not that I expected anything in return. What I do in life is a labor of love, that's well known. I see a challenge, a target, and I bend my head down like a bull and charge full bore into it. Out of love, which is just how my mind works, in concert with my heart. I'm all heart and all head.

But a month or so ago I was drowning here. I was going down for the third time and no one would throw me a rope or inner tube. I was sinking without the slightest bit of support. I looked to you to help me but you stood there, oblivious to my plight.

It was then that I had to reach down and find something in myself, and I saved myself. I said, Enough! I made one of the firmest decisions of my entire life when I saw that despair, and knew that there and then I had to take a hiatus. It was a matter of me going down for the last time. And that moment was the moment of truth.

I don't know exactly how I did it. But I do know why. Because it wouldn't get done otherwise. No one came to assist! As far as you were concerned, Let him drown. Maybe he'll bob around out there like a cork in a very pleasant way before eventually ingesting enough water to kill any man.

It's true. In a figurative way, I felt my lungs filling up with moisture. My breathing became shallow and nearly stopped all together. I felt a kind of bombasia in my mind, glistening up and enlightening all my senses, and I knew in my last seconds of sentience, I'm overwhelmed, yes, but I still have it in me to save myself. The swirling sensation in my mind was like a kaleidoscope with many special effects added to it. Some were beautiful. I could have drifted off looking at them, except for my natural fighting spirit that came to the fore.

At that second, all at once, I tightly clutched my fists. (This is figurative, not literal, but picture it.) I looked up toward the surface and could just see the sun as a small, hazy, and indistinct flicker. But I went straight up toward it like a Titan rocket and launched myself six feet out of the water if it was an inch. Then I swam to shore. In fact I was at the shore the second I aimed myself toward it.

It was then that my last ounce of energy was completely spent. I crawled on the beach and gasped for air. And I swore in thoughts, not words, that without any further ado I must take a break, a hiatus. I must. I'll repeat that: I said, I must. When that happens you know your fate has been determined, there's no turning back, no alternate course that may be charted.

So my hiatus was begun.

Friends, no matter the great resentment I've stirred in many of you, and I've heard enough to know you're simmering, I feel it necessary to continue my hiatus. So it was, so it shall be.