In and Out.

When you are a writer, by nature, you are always writing about something. Always putting thoughts and subjects and current events together to form sentences and paragraphs and pages about life. Even if you never get those sentences and paragraphs down on paper.

You are always relating something to something bigger. People to beliefs. Beliefs to an overall meaning about life. The weather to how the world works.

It is what it is, as someone I used to know used to say.

You get used to missing the boat. Forgetting about the truths you discovered over lunch and promised you would write down when you got home. Remembering what you said you would write about, and then realizing it didn't matter as much as you thought it did at the time.

There have been so many things I've wanted to write about in the past few months. But because of my unwillingness to sit down at my computer, I can't tell you what half of those things are now. I've let my beloved blog fall by the waist side. And I have no reason or excuse why I've let that happen.

So, instead of trying to conjure up all the missed pages, I'll just start anew. I'll start with my new favorite hobby -- scuba.

When I first learned to scuba, it was in a pool in February. Guam doesn't have winter or fall, so the water was warm. And I was terrified.

It was strange how just learning to breathe felt so unnatural. Granted breathing underwater is, by nature, unnatural. But still. You have air, so it should be easy. In and out, in and out -- it's that simple.

It wasn't simple at all though, that first time. Letting go of gravity, trading my flip-flops for fins, learning to see straight ahead instead of side-to-side, it was all hard. But now that I've done it, I'll tell you what I like most.

It's the nothingness. It's having control of everything and nothing at the same time. It's not talking. Not walking. Not being able to run away or jet up to the surface when you see something bigger than you in the water. It's just ... breathing.

Sometimes that is so taken for granted. There is work and laundry and dishes and love and TV and Myspace and family and time differences and learning to cook and making new friends and keeping the old. There's keeping my relationship with God and making it better and being the person that I want to be and loving the person I'm with.

There's everything. There's everything in my life that's worthy of my time. There's everything that keeps me from just breathing.

I would not trade who I am for a second. I would not sacrifice any part of my life for anything in the world. And I would not give up one person in my world ... well, for the world. But there is something so satisfying about breathing.

In and out, in and out.