For thirty-four years I thought I was a sea lion. It must have started off as some childhood game, but I still don’t remember the specifics. Somewhere along the way, when I wasn’t paying attention, the idea became a fact.
I was not a real lion. Not like the kind that scream and hunt and chase things they catch with their perfectly padded paws. I preferred the sea. In part this was why I couldn’t believe my identity was something I’d made up for fun. If I had created myself a brand new body surely I’d make myself a lion.
But the sea lion made more sense. I liked the weightlessness of swimming underwater and I wasn’t flashy like a seal or otter. It was natural to be linked with this kind of animal. This was my lot in life.
Though I didn’t catch animals, the fish were good. This was what I explained to my partners. At first they took this as some kind of joke, but then came the weight of our differences.
I wasn’t like the people they had dated, but I never pretended I was. Most of them hated when I finally met their parents, caviar presented by mistake.
I would tell them ahead of time, don’t let them serve fish. I told them I’d definitely go wild. Whether they believed me or not, they never told their parents. I was a spectacle, blemishing their judgement.
I carried on. I kept in touch with the girls. I had my own set of friends and I enjoyed them. Sometimes I offered advice to my friends, but we didn’t have much in common. They couldn’t understand, as much as I explained, I was always going to be a sea lion.
How are you, Jack? My friends were curious. To answer was to give myself away. Eventually I learned not to tell them my issues. Their opinions might have ruined my esteem.
The sea lion is majestical, but not majestic nor magical. It is too ugly to be royal and too boring to be mystical. It is, however, other-worldly. They are powerful creatures, not loners, but independent. Sea lions are particularly self-sufficient.
Except when it comes to paying bills. Or doing household chores. Or taking care of people with individualized needs. But when a life is so different that it cannot be compared, just surviving is a real achievement.
In part this is why the accomplishment of marriage was perceived as quite extraordinary.
I got married in winter because I was a sea lion. My bride was cold, but wore sleeves. She was 19 which should have been a warning, but I thought she was old enough for me.
She was an ice queen. A monster in disguise. Once we married she grew sharp. Still, I thought, I would soften her up. I was not like all the rest.
We bought a one story ranch way out in Indiana where her parents and siblings were located. She had four nieces and four nephews, but not a lot to do.
“Just try,” my wife said. “Just try to fit in.”
Naturally I felt out of place.
I told her this was not my idea of paradise and I didn’t know anyone like me. I did not point out my life was much harder, but did give her heavy thoughtful sighs. I thought she would catch on to my limitations, but she did not and wouldn’t try.
We played cards with the underweight neighbor with a mole. His wife was a roly-poly woman. I pretended to like their little cocker spaniel and never chewed on the cat. I would have offered to wash the dishes, but they knew I was just a sea lion. When they offered to drive us home that night, I said yes.
This was my mistake. Our downfall. The end.
I was grateful for the ride because the walk was just too difficult, but, this, my wife said, was unacceptable.
“We could have walked,” she said, slamming the front door. “We walked there, didn’t we?” Charity, she assumed, was never a necessary request.
“Mow the lawn!” my wife demanded. It was a week after the incident. I explained to her that sea lions can’t drive.
“Find a job,” she demanded. We had lived there three months. I chose not to tell her the obvious.
After two years in our rented house we separated in July. It was bound to happen in the heat. I moved back to Bar Harbor all by myself. This was when I thought I was home.
I lay on the rocks and ate lots of salmon. I basked in a warm winter sun. But after sleeping and eating and enjoying my life, something unexpected occurred.
There was a silence. A deep and echoing quiet.
At first I thought I shouldn’t care. Sea lions were used to the quiet. But then I felt my entire body shut down.
The rocks became jagged and left bruises on my back. I could feel a purple cold in my extremities. When all the fish started tasting sour, I was forced to admit the truth. I was not, and never had been, a sea lion.
My family was relieved when I told them the news. So were my old friends from college.
“It makes so much more sense now,” I told them over coffee. I am truly a Siberian Moose.
About the author
Rebecca Coles Lee is best known for her medical poetry found in Harvard’s Third Space medical journal, The British Medical Journal, CHEST physicians, and Dartmouth’s Life Lines. Her essay, The Rules of Engagement, was selected as a notable essay in the Best American Essays anthology.
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