Just Keep Swimming

Could it be that as I stumble through midlife, trying to heal old wounds, I find myself repeating a phrase made famous by a Disney fish? (Trigger warning: SA is referenced in this post)

I may be part mermaid. I grew up on a small lake and was on a local swim team until I was 11. In the spring my siblings and I would get in the water way too early in the season, the water so cold we felt bitten by tiny teeth. We would gather our friends and swim as late into the fall as our bodies and moms would allow. I am 100% at peace with my body when it is submerged in water. It is the only time I feel graceful, where I can truly dance as if no one is watching.

I’m probably 7 in this picture with my mom and our dog Mandy. That dog loved to swim as much as we did.

Last year my son convinced me to get a family membership at a gym. This gym was very close to where he worked, however, it is on the completely other side of town for me. I was going to humor my kid though and I dutifully took the tour.

“Cool, cool”, I kept saying as I was shown various areas of the gym. Nothing was that special. A gym is a gym is a….wait, I saw the pool and it was EMPTY. “My son told me you had a pool, and I totally forgot.”

“Oh yeah, the manager said, Do you swim? That pool hardly ever has anyone in it.”

“Reeeeally?”

I signed up for a membership immediately after the tour. With my current middle-aged angst toward my aging body, I knew I needed to start taking to the waters to ease my soul. A concept my friend Lee and her love of water has drilled into me.

It took me a minute to get my routine down, 4 laps breaststroke, 2 laps back-ish stroke, repeat 7 times. After the first few times, I created a system to help me track my laps. I brought 7 pennies with me and stacked them on the right side of my lane’s pool deck, after each set of 6 laps I moved a penny to the left. When I realized I was committed to swimming a few times a week I bought goggles and a swim cap.

The pool room not only houses a lap pool, but a thinner rectangular exercise pool and a hot tub. The hot tub gets the most use, though it too is often empty. Pretty soon after I started using the pool I realized that when other people came into the pool area I would feel annoyed as if they were entering my home uninvited. I laughed about it with my family.

Then I started to notice another feeling, just underneath my annoyance. I started to notice a tightness in my chest and a need to know where I was in relation to all the exits of the pool. I would speed up swimming so I could be done with my workout sooner. I was annoyed with myself: What is wrong with you? Can you not even relax in the pool? You need to stop listening to crime podcasts. Inner eye-roll. I mean, 99.9% of of these people are getting in the hot tub, not the pool anyway, so why do I care?

And then it hit me, 99.9% of the people that come into the pool area are men. I settled into that thought.

For weeks I examined it. Is this all men or just some? Some. Is it only men of color? Nope, it’s not about race. Is it young men? Older teens to 60’s. Old men? Very old men and young boys excluded. What happens if it’s a group? Not as much anxiety. Am I anxious when there is a woman with the man? No.

I examined each situation as it happened, and though sometimes I wanted to, I didn’t stop swimming.

I’m finding myself in such a strange headspace in my 50’s. You would think that someone who has been in therapy and spiritual quests on an off for 40 years would already have a lot of insight on her triggers, but y’all know we’re onions right? I believe I’ve entered the deeper layers. They. Are. Gooey.

While on one hand, I’m struggling with my aging body - with its sags, softness, and both balding and sprouting of hair, there’s another part of me that has the wisdom that comes with being 51. I find I have a broader perspective on my past and the girl I was. I can see her now as the child I was, and as the woman I am. I don’t know how to explain the old crone mind that has entered into my brain, but while I have my angsty teen in there freaking out about back fat, there is also the sweetest and wisest old Granny speaking to me in a way that touches me deeply and makes me feel rooted in my soul.

It’s this Granny who told me to investigate my anxiety in the pool. She’s the one who told me to stick my finger in that wound and dig around a little. So I kept digging, asking, Why? Why is it that I get anxious with the men that come into the pool except the infirm, elderly, or children?

Then I felt the old crone next to me. Gently she whispered, Because Sweetie, when you have been preyed upon, it wasn’t just one type of man.

She continued, placing her hand on mine, You weren’t wearing something suggestive, and it wasn’t in some sketchy place. You get anxious because you know that assault can happen anywhere at any age. And then she started making a list of the types of people who had betrayed me: a friend’s brother, a friend’s father, a doctor, a boyfriend, my good friend who happened to be my landlord, a group of strangers. And then she named places where those things happened: my friend’s house, my friend’s dad’s house, an office, a chapel, my house, a bar.

And then, quite strangely, I felt a great sense of peace. I am not crazy. I am smart and I am protecting myself from something that has been a danger to me on more than one occasion. It is okay to alternate laps repeating, “I am safe in a bubble of golden light”, on the way down the lane and “Punch him in the throat, stick him in the eye”, on the way back. Just keep swimming.

“It is not all men, but it is almost always men.” I saw this on a sticker the other day and with much sadness I thought, Exactly. But I keep swimming because that’s what mermaids do.

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