When I walked thru the open door

When I walked thru the open door of our community center, I saw the pool. The water was a deep sparkling aqua blue. There was no one else there. Just me. The sun shining, the water and me.

It was so inviting that I tore off my shirt and dove in and started to swim lap after lap. Swimming has always been my zen. My go to. I remember living in Houston and swimming in the pool in our community center. I was a depressed and stressed out corporate lawyer, so I swam after work. Laps and laps. Looking back, I swam to escape the lack of a life I'd made myself. My unhappiness with corporate law. My loneliness in a city with no family. My sadness.

Swimming started when I was a kid. My parents bought a pool when I was in elementary school. It was the greatest gift. Me and my sisters were so happy. We literally jumped with joy when we found out. We would swim for days. It was our summer. And winter. Even in the rain. Jumping off the roof into the pool. Racing each other. Diving into water on hot summer days after barbecuing. Those are the memories that linger. 

I can still remember laying on a floatie in the haze of summer for hours and hours. My skin tanning from the golden rays and then turning the floatie over to swim underwater. The coolness of the water rejuvenating me.

In high school, I was on the swim team. I loved swimming freestyle and backstroke. I wasn't the best swimmer but I was super enthusiastic and always amazed at how swimming freed me. It showed me the possibilities in life. Swimming helped me escape the chaos of those years. And when I quit the swim team, I lost myself.

Writing this, I realize that I want to find that joy again. Joy in my body. In being connected. When I was younger, in moving through water to find myself, I was able to find that connection with my mind and body. Now at 50, I feel like I've lost it. It's funny that at 30, I was miserable at work and needed a change. and that now at 50, two decades later, as a stressed out deputy public defender, I've come to understand that change is needed again. Perhaps what feeds us, does not always feed us forever. 

But swimming does feed me. Will always feed me. So into the water I will go. Stroke by stroke. I will go.