Swimming
(Day Twenty)
Twenty days of writing posts! That's pretty good. It's becoming a habit, which is the most important thing.
I'm going to use the oneword.com prompt today -- the word is "swimmer." Here ya go.
Swimmer
Swimming used to be my jam, yo. From the ages of whenever-I-learned-to-swim to probably 13, swimming was the highlight of summer. I remember long, hot bike rides around the neighborhood, trying to find someone who would let us swim in their pool. We were very rarely successful, but it was such an intense longing to slide into that cool, clear water. At the lake, I'd make sure I was the last person out of the water, as if it were a matter of pride. One more time under the water, I'd say to myself, ducking my head under as my family waited impatiently in the boat.
Whenever we went to stay in hotels, whether or not the hotel had a pool was far more important than where we actually were traveling. It was so important that I developed a ritual -- during the last five minutes of the last swim of the trip, I would swim down to the deepest part of the pool, touch the bottom, and say, "Goodbye, pool." Like I actually said the words under water. It was really quite emotional. I was such a weirdo.
At some point the intense joy of swimming went away. Just vanished. I still like to swim, but it's more a "normal person" emotion. It's like playing in the snow -- I remember being at my grandma's house, about to go out and play with my brothers and cousins. We asked if any of the adults wanted to build a snow fort or a snowman, and no one was up for it. I thought to myself, "No matter how old I get, I will not lose my ability to have fun in the snow."
I still like to play in the snow and build snowmen, even if I'm doing it by myself. Case in point:
But it's not that intense longing and joy I had as a kid. Is that kind of joy just a facet of childhood and therefore gone forever?
I hope you know I wrote this post while literally falling asleep a couple times at my computer. A second ago I found myself looking at the screen, thinking, "Where did I find that photo and when did I put it in this post?" Yay, Friday!
Twenty days of writing posts! That's pretty good. It's becoming a habit, which is the most important thing.
I'm going to use the oneword.com prompt today -- the word is "swimmer." Here ya go.
Swimmer
Swimming used to be my jam, yo. From the ages of whenever-I-learned-to-swim to probably 13, swimming was the highlight of summer. I remember long, hot bike rides around the neighborhood, trying to find someone who would let us swim in their pool. We were very rarely successful, but it was such an intense longing to slide into that cool, clear water. At the lake, I'd make sure I was the last person out of the water, as if it were a matter of pride. One more time under the water, I'd say to myself, ducking my head under as my family waited impatiently in the boat.
Whenever we went to stay in hotels, whether or not the hotel had a pool was far more important than where we actually were traveling. It was so important that I developed a ritual -- during the last five minutes of the last swim of the trip, I would swim down to the deepest part of the pool, touch the bottom, and say, "Goodbye, pool." Like I actually said the words under water. It was really quite emotional. I was such a weirdo.
At some point the intense joy of swimming went away. Just vanished. I still like to swim, but it's more a "normal person" emotion. It's like playing in the snow -- I remember being at my grandma's house, about to go out and play with my brothers and cousins. We asked if any of the adults wanted to build a snow fort or a snowman, and no one was up for it. I thought to myself, "No matter how old I get, I will not lose my ability to have fun in the snow."
I still like to play in the snow and build snowmen, even if I'm doing it by myself. Case in point:
But it's not that intense longing and joy I had as a kid. Is that kind of joy just a facet of childhood and therefore gone forever?
I hope you know I wrote this post while literally falling asleep a couple times at my computer. A second ago I found myself looking at the screen, thinking, "Where did I find that photo and when did I put it in this post?" Yay, Friday!