I don’t know what it is, but I’ve become aware of it recently more than ever– when I step into the pool to for a swim, it’s like everything that worries me falls away.
While I don’t profess to be any great swimmer (I never could get the breathing right no matter how many times I tried), I just love to be in the water. Maybe it’s because there’s something about taking the stress off my feet and legs that get tired of holding me up.
Or maybe the water is filled with hope.
I have written and talked before how family vacations were the happiest times for me and all about the Holiday Inn or other motel swimming pool. My husband Greg will say that you just need to give me a motel with a pool in the parking lot and I’m set. But I also spent summers with my friends at a swimming pool that had once been a quarry in my hometown of Naperville, IL. Or maybe it’s just because we’re taught that to have a swimming pool, is status, it’s prestige.
It’s more than that. My pool guy will say that no one uses a pool more than I do. Sure, I like to look out the window and see it but I really like to be in it. That’s what makes not being able to surf so frustrating– I miss laying on my board as the waves lapped below me. It was a connection to the water that I don’t get to experience right now because of my arm injury. I connect via swimming but I still miss that ocean connection the surfboard.
We all have places we find peace and hope. While I didn’t really understand it, I learned mine early, hung on it, and integrated it into my daily life. And that’s partly what helps keep me going even when life tries to distract me and hold me back.