The first time I went swimming in the Ocean it was May. My California cousins didn't even bring their swimsuits to the beach. We, as Minnesotans, did not know that it was too cold to go swimming. There was water. There was sun. We were not wearing parkas. Too cold? Bah. When I entered salt water for the first time I made the mistake of treating the ocean like a lake. I ran into the water until the water was up to my armpits and then I did a shallow surface dive to complete the process of getting wet. The gradual method is like a death of a thousand cuts. If you are going to swim in "refreshing" water, it is best done as quickly as possible. I came up coughing, snorting salt water out of my knows and blinking through tear filled eyes. This was not how the water I knew behaved. The California cousins laughed at me, but they decided that if we could brave the water, they could too. We spent the afternoon in the shallow end of the ocean-- with heads above water. I think it was on this same trip when I went out so I was deep enough to swim. There seemed to be someone frantically waving me closer to shore. It was hard to tell without my glasses on. I began to paddle back in a discovered that I was not able to get noticeably closer to the shore. I was slipping sideways. And getting tired. I don't remember if I swam out of that tide or if a lifeguard came out to yell at me. I do remember the yelling. And that there was a strong riptide very near where i was swimming. The ocean is not a big lake. I wasn't even in the riptide and the plain old regular tide was almost enough to keep me at sea against my will. I no longer feel like I am being pulled out to sea or having to fight against the tide. I felt my face floating into a smile today and it felt natural and unforced. Nice. But sometimes I feel like I have to keep fighting (in the Kicking of Depression's Ass department) just exactly the right amount or risk going backwards. It isn't a frantic struggle. I am not trying to get away from anything. I can relax a bit from my initial battle with Dastardly Depression. But still, even a reasonable pace gets tiring if it must be kept up indefinitely. It doesn't so much feel like I'm swimming against the ocean, but more like those tiny little swimming pools with a current for you to swim against. It will still wear me down, but I will not go anywhere. I will not get sucked into the belly of the ocean, but I will also not make any forward progress. I will just get tired. Damn, this is quite a cheery post. It was a hard night for one of my kids. Battling with BIG EMOTIONS. And one of the other kids had a difficult afternoon with similar but unrelated BIG EMOTIONS. The kind that swallow you whole and chew on you for a bit before they spit you out somewhat worse for the wear. And while the BIG EMOTIONS are grinding you in their gaping maws, they are not neat about it. Anyone near them had better beware. Fallout is messy, painful, noisy and unpleasant. Cleanup may take hours. I realized this morning at 4 am that while I had diligently put all of my anti-depressants in the pill minder at the end/beginning of the week, I forgot to also put my allergy medication. I discovered this while sneezing uncontrollably. Which likely contributes to the melancholy nature of this post. Grateful Crap: Ummm.... no wait, I will totally think of something. Wool socks. I love the wool socks. I should knit me some more of those. Yep. Daily Convexions: took meds (150mg sertraline, 450mg bupropion) spent time outside walked a bit, but it was at a snail's pace went to quaker meeting Comments are closed.
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |