Swimming For My Life

I can vividly picture myself sitting on an airplane, making the three hour flight from Houston to Los Angeles to visit my family; I was reading the book "Everything I Know I Learned in Kindergarten."  What a great book.  Where would any of us be without those simple lessons that continue to guide our lives?  Who we are, in large part, is shaped by the time we are five years old, but I am finding that life lessons can be learned at any age.  In fact, if we stop learning and growing, we begin dying, inside and out.


Last week I stepped way out of my comfort zone and landed in a swimming pool.  I took swimming lessons when I was a child but without practice or regular exposure to the water anything I learned was soon forgotten; it was replaced by fear.  I spent the next forty or so years longing to be able to go to water parks, do activities in and around water, and just plain relax and have fun.  The time had come; I donned a bathing suit (does it get any more brave than this?), goggles and stepped over the edge.


A friend is teaching me at her home.  No one to see me flail and gasp; no one to laugh as I struggle to coordinate my arms and legs trying to make them do what I want them to do.  I am learning under the watchful eye of a kind and patient friend who is able to push with just right amount of gentleness.  I feel safe and I also want to make her proud.


The very first thing I learned was "as long as there is air in your lungs you will float."  What an amazing difference that little piece of information made to me.  With air I will float.  Without air I will sink.  I left that first day and pondered the bigger picture of this lesson.

When each one of us is born God breathes life into us.  He is the air that gives us life.  But the physical life is not really what I learned from my floating/sinking experience.  Along with my swimming lesson came a week of painful human emotions.  I was sinking fast - gasping for air and flailing about; I was truly drowning.  But, an amazing thing happened as the week progressed.  I prayed.  I cried.  I prayed while I was crying.  Friends prayed for me and the situation.  Slowly, I felt the life giving air filling me once again.  I was floating in the arms of my God who loves me and ALWAYS carries His children to safety when they cry out for Him. 


My week ended with an exhausting yet fun weekend with my precious grandchildren.  Children embody the hope and promise for the future.  I was filled with God on the inside as I watched life exploding in front of me.  A gift of life from the One who gives life.  

When life is swirling out of control: breathe.   Don't panic, slow down, breathe in through your mouth - out through your nose and be sure to stay filled with the air of life.

Next Lesson:  Don't Be Dainty

The Grip of Fear

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.   Anatole France

For me, one of the most painful parts of growing older is realizing that the life I dreamed of is not the life I have.  I am grieving the loss of a dream life that was never really mine to begin with.  I stepped into the middle of a life in progress.  I married a man with one child, a child I had known since birth, and a child I loved, cared for and viewed as my daughter.  The problem was, this feeling was not, and I now realize can never be returned.  It is truly no fault of hers.  She grew up torn between two people who were so wounded that they couldn't see past their own pain.  The death of a child will do that to a couple.  This couple endured the death of two children.  How can that kind of pain ever be repaired?


I viewed myself as the "knight in shining armor."  I could almost hear Mighty Mouse's theme song, "Here I am to save the day!"  Well it didn't take long for that ridiculous fantasy to be shattered by the reality of life.  But I continued loving that girl, trying to walk a tight rope between respecting her mother and wanting - no needing - some kind of valid relationship with her.

Tragically her mother died when she was 16 and none of us have ever been the same.  Her mother was like all the rest of us - she had her good points and her not so good points, truly no better or worse than anyone else; however, whenever someone dies before the world is ready to lose them,  then all the flaws evaporate and the good is magnified.  I would never, not in a million years say anything negative about this woman.  She gave birth to my step daughter and because of that I have 3 beautiful grandchildren.

The last twenty years have been spent living a life responding to the needs of this young woman.  We have turned our marriage and life upside down and backwards out of love, concern, control, and fear.  Fear that all the pain of her short life would lead her to make decisions that have long lasting effects.  We have set her free, but not really.  


We are at a particularly painful crossroad.  I am stepping back and realizing that I have to have the courage to let go - permanently let go - of that dream life in order to move forward.  This pain will not stop until I do.  Those grandchildren are the only children I have known.  The oldest one was born while her mom still lived at home and I was blessed to help raise her.  We have a bond that can never be broken.  Neither time nor distance will tear us apart.  I must trust that truth.  I must have the courage to let go and reclaim my life.


I must die to the life of family holidays, boisterous get togethers, going to school plays, dance recitals, sporting events, and just creating traditions that can be passed down to the next generation.  What could I gain if I let go?


Freedom.  The freedom to continue to grow as an independent person; to live a life as the free spirited artist I see in myself; a life that always has room for those I love yet doesn't depend on them to fulfill me; the freedom to live.


This is possibly the most frightening time in my life.  I am totally out of control of the situation, and yet there is a new control within reach if...
I.....
         just.........
                          let..........
                                           go............