The Story of Christian - The Irish Lad - and The Mermaid

Once upon a time there was an Irish lad named Christian. He was young, handsome, charismatic, and had always been able to get away with things he probably shouldn’t have.

One evening, while watching the sun slowly set below the horizon on a rocky beach he met a beautiful mermaid. He was immediately enchanted with her and she with him, but he was not yet finished with his schooling so she wished him well and they parted ways.
A few seasons later Christian visited the rocky beach and saw the beautiful mermaid again. This time he had finished his studies and was now helping to build the cement blocks that are so often seen on land. He was a fast learner and had mastered building these cement blocks very well, indeed. He was living a very good life. The mermaid, unimpressed with such things, but seeing that he had grown within himself now thought he might appreciate some of the world that she knew in her deep, blue ocean.

They began watching sunsets together as she would share stories about the life she lived beneath the waves of her ocean. She secretly hoped she was explaining it properly and using accurate words to describe her life, because it can be so hard to translate one’s own feelings and reality into a picture someone else can see and understand - especially when the differences are as vast as those between land and sea.

Christian, the Irish Lad, and the beautiful mermaid would try to spend as much time together as they could. But the cement blocks had to be built. And Christian was such an important part of getting the cement blocks built. There were times that Christian would tell the beautiful mermaid that he wanted to get away from making the cement blocks, and the beautiful mermaid would spend many passes of the moon preparing pretty rocks, finding the perfect coral bed, identifying fish-life, and memorizing the way to the most majestic caverns so that the time they spent together would be special. Alas, inevitably, Christian would be unable to break away from making the cement blocks for one reason or another. Whether it was exhaustion, demands for more and more cement blocks, or - as the mermaid sometimes suspected -shyness, intimidation, or fear of such a big, open ocean of possibility. Maybe Christian couldn’t see or understand (as the mermaid did) that there is no bad adventure or experience underwater or on the beach. Life lived in the freedom of the water and the love and acceptance of the warm beauty that surrounds it is all forgiving. It is all fun and games and should be approached as a child approaches a playground. There are many things to find out about, so many new and different things to see and do over and over again that each and every moment is an adventure; and adventures are WONDERFUL. There can be no wrong steps when you are both finding out together what the other likes about the places you visit.

As time and time again Christian could not come to the rocky beach the beautiful mermaid slowly began to realize that Christian may have been a quick study when it came to building the cement blocks that were so important on land, but in her beloved ocean world he was a stranger and could not understand the mindset needed to visit there. The reality was he might never understand or be able to come to the rocky beach again. It might just be too much for an Irish Lad that builds cement blocks - for whatever reason. As much as the mermaid wanted to share her ocean she could not make him come to the beach. This was very sad for the beautiful mermaid, for she believed no one should ever miss adventures and opportunities because of fear.

One day, many turns of the earth later, Christian again came to the rocky beach to visit the beautiful mermaid. This time, while they watched the sunset over the ocean he told the mermaid that he just didn’t understand how she could sit on the same rocky beach and watch the same sunset over and over again, year after year after year. The beautiful mermaid suddenly realized that for the many years she had known the handome Irish Lad she had never really seen the big picture. Maybe the beautiful mermaid had so hoped to share her world with Christian that she failed to see that an Irish land-locked Lad might not be able to understand her world at all. So the mermaid simply replied to Christian that yes, sunsets do make her bored, since that’s all she has watched for her whole life. “I thought so”, said Christian, and the beautiful mermaid began to cry. She had just lied about the very essence of who she was; she had just lied about sunsets, and - she had just lied.

Oh. And she realized she never really had a friend named Christian.