The Coping, a beginning

The air inside the aquatic center was muggy and warm. The chlorine assaulted my sinuses. I watched as my son prepared to dive into the pool. For all his complaining, he sure took to the water. "The best exercise in the world," I tell him. It gives me a connection to bond with him, something to share. My years of competitive swimming are long over and faded in the past; now, I am limited by severe joint problems. How much worse would they have been, if I had chosen another sport? Or had I quickened the pace to immobility through years of strain on shoulders and hips? I couldn't blame it all on swimming, of course. After all, there were the years as a chef, hours on my feet, stress of constant chopping and lifting. No way to tell now. All that was left was the coping.

The sights and sounds brought back memories of childhood. I try not to think back on those years too often. I used to have all my memories tied up in neat little packages, only admiring the good ones, pushing the bad deep into the recesses of my mind. But as I age, the wrappings grow weak, and childhood horrors begin to peak out. I cannot always push them back to where they belong. I am torn between reconciling things long past and burying them until I die. Neither way is healthy or safe. Either approach could send me spinning back over the edge.

I turned my mind back to the present. I relaxed as I watched the kids swim. I had nothing to complain about, really. Our new business had allowed me to quit working. With the problems I had been having, this was exactly what I needed. We weren't hurting for money. Yet, I felt uneasy and restless. I wanted to go back to work part-time.

My mind, as hard as I tried to stay in the present, continued to wander back to the past. Each morning in the summer, I would walk half a mile to the pool, stomping down sprinkler heads stuck from their morning watering. The 6 a.m. chill of the morning air was refreshing from the normal summer heat, and the only sounds were the birds and my flip-flops on the pavement.

Unlike the heated, indoor pool were my son would learn to swim, this pool was outside and always cold. I moved to the edge, waiting for the coach's first instruction of the day. Once given, we had moments to dive in and get started, or else face an additional 25 laps of warm-up. I often used this experience later in life, to just dive in.