Treading water

The only goal is to keep going and to hang on to those little slivers of hope and peace and calm.

 
Lately, I feel like I’m drowning all the time. Fighting to hold my head above in a sea of uncertainty, expectation, and fear. For now, I’m treading water. So many of us are. All we can do is keep fighting until our legs give out and our arms get tired or the proverbial water recedes.

Some days I feel like a kid in the deep end at camp for the first time again. Uncertain of my ability and keenly aware of the imminent danger surrounding me. Others, I’m a pro. I could kick my feet and swing my arms in this fashion for days—Ok, hours…or several minutes, at least.

The moments of strength are, for the most part, just that: moments. Fleeting days or pieces of days where I feel present, accomplished or prepared for what will come. Mostly I just feel O.K.—that I’m treading, head just above the waterline. And that’s fine.

That has to be fine because as long as I’m treading, I’m not drowning. I’m not overwhelmed—not enough to need saving anyway—and I feel that I can go on. That things may not be okay now but the danger, just like in that camp pool, is not as imminent as it seems.

Learning to tread water is hard at first. You have to learn to move your legs and arms in a specific motion and sequence or all that work will be for naught. You have to train your brain to focus on the pattern and tune out the aches in your muscles and fear in your heart. In life, it’s much the same.

You train your brain to follow the rhythms and routine and not reject them when things get tough. You adapt when you need to, working faster or slowing down when life requires. It works sometimes and others, it doesn’t. Sometimes, you’re happy, or content, and sometimes you’re not. It’s dealing with the not that’s hard.

Treading water works because it’s rooted in routine. There’s a sequence to it: one arm and one leg move together at a time, switching off with each stroke. Once you’ve got that down, you’re good to go. The deepest waters and choppiest seas don’t scare you (not as much, anyway).

Without routine, most of us are lost. Even the most disorganized among us have some kind of routine. You wake up roughly the same time every day, go to work, go to school, eat meals at certain times throughout the day, run errands, come home, unwind, go to sleep and repeat most days. The routine, and the things that happen in between, help push life along.

There are things keeping me going every day. Small glimmers of hope or moments of peace and calm that make me believe that one day I won’t need to tread so hard, or at all. One day I won’t have to give as much thought to the motions keeping my head from slipping under. One day.

Πηγή: livebetr.com