Remembering to Float

My mom, who recently turned 89, has been having some medical issues lately. I’m not going to give you the gory details, but suffice it to say she hasn’t been able to do her usual routines for months.

She has always been a very active person, my mother. She has taught international folk dancing for the past almost 40 years and up until recently she was still folk dancing a few nights a week and teaching now and then.

She learned to ride a horse at age 75 so we could all go on a high Sierra pack trip. She started taking swimming lessons at age 70 and up until this past October she was swimming laps for 45 minutes 2 to 3 times a week.

And, she’s always been an avid gardener.

Generally speaking, my 89 year old mom is in way better shape than I am.

But her recent ailments have thrown her for a loop.

Last week Mary and I were down in Oakland spending time with her as her eyes heal from her latest procedure and she and I had a conversation about “one day when I can go back to swimming.”

“I’m worried,” she said, “what if I can’t swim all the way across anymore?”

“You’ll just stand up and walk!” I so smartly replied.

“It’s too deep almost all the way across,” she informed me.

We sat there and quietly considered that.

“I guess I’ll have to just roll over and float on my back for a while,” she said. “Till I get my strength back.”

I’ve been feeling a bit like that lately. Life is so hard these days with the world being as scary as it is. Sometimes I’m halfway across the pool before I realize that I don’t have enough in me to get all the way across.

It’s a constant challenge to figure out what I can manage.

Often, in those moments of losing energy I also lose perspective (Help! It’s a crisis! It’s an emergency! The sky is falling! I’m exhausted! I must be drowning!) I just react. I flail around in the water, splashing arms and legs, wearing myself out even more.

In those moments, as hard as it actually is, I need to remember that I do have options. I have options!

Freak out. Get depressed. Indulge in my negative fantasies.
Eat. Preferably chocolate.
Pause and take a breath. Notice what I’m feeling.
Make art. Make a mess.
Get out in nature. Take a walk to the park. Sit in my garden and inhale the perfume of the citrus trees and the jasmine.
Take a nap. Close my eyes. Rest.
Call a friend. Talk to Mary. Connect with someone who cares about me and might not be in the same insecurity spiral I’m in at this moment (don’t worry, they’ll have their time at some point!).

Freaking out is reactive and sometimes that’s just where I am. Eating away my feelings is a long held soothing pattern. And not the best most of the time, but feels great in the moment. I try not to judge myself for choosing these easy options. Especially chocolate.

When I’m feeling anxious, demoralized, and pessimistic I don’t usually have the insight to turn to the calm – and wiser – alternatives.

But those options do exist. And if I can be a little more self-aware, I can change my perspective. (I’m ok, everyone around me is ok, the world is not on fire right around me at this moment. I’m not actually drowning.)

In the scary/uncomfortable moment it is a heavy lift to take the calm, restorative path. But the pay off is higher, better and usually longer lasting.

We spend so much energy on the reaction and the emotion, when we could just roll over and float. Roll over and rest on our backs. Rest on our backs and see the sky (and see that it's not falling).

And breathe until we have the energy to make it across the pool.