Where am I?

Today at the lake it was dark and a bit ominous.

I ran into two women from the swim club on their way out of the lake; they couldn’t have had less interested in talking to me. M thinks they were just preoccupied, but I feel like at least one of them just doesn’t want to swim with me. Whatever. I’m not inviting them to be in the poetry swim club.

Then again, I am so rattled and spaced out from depression and PTSD that I no longer have a working Spidey sense about people. I usually can read people pretty well. Also, after more than a year of lockdown, isolation, I want to have swim friends NOW. I need to just do my thing, and remember that it takes time to join a group and feel part of it. It takes time to meet people. And maybe here I seem like a big weirdo coming up to strangers and asking them to be my swim buddies. Maybe it is totes weird to walk up to a stranger and expect to join their swim club just ’cause you want to. LOL.

“Slow down, Crazy.”

There was nobody at the lake (except me and my friend who sat and watched from the shore), and as I stepped into the water three ducks crash landed near me, making a loud splash that scared the crap out of me.

It’s embarassing when stuff like this happens ’cause I just emit this sort of squeak that sounds like a squelched scream…my reactions are so slow that I have time to modify mid-squeak. I stood in the waist-deep water, and yelled ‘F” about 10 times. Then “wet suit” about 5 times. Then “this is crazy, this is crazy.” then I plunged in.

Coldest water so far today. My face instantly felt frost-bitten, and my wrists and arms were cold. And then, in what was less the 5 min, maybe less than 3 minutes, I didn’t feel it. My body adapts so fast. Good thing about swimming as it’s getting dark: I can’t see the scary seaweeds as well. Bad thing: I can’t see anything once I pass the cement dock and head to the “speed limit” buoy. And sometimes it’s worse not knowing. Like is Mr. Big or something worse and bigger fish are going to pop up in front of me. I think they stay in the weeds at the bottom. They’re lurkers. But who knows.

There is one type of shark that can swim in both salt and fresh water. Must remember to wear my knife next time. The buoy looked so far away today, and I considered not doing it. I didn’t get much sleep last night because a certain person is being an abusive a-hole to me, and it is freaking me out. This person will be out of my life soon, maybe in a week. But toxic people have a way of putting me on edge and triggering my PTSD……it’s been a crazy few weeks. I wish I could just block them out. But enough of him.

I decided to go for the buoy. I tried the crawl, but I still have a bad shoulder, so I couldn’t do it. the water was wavy, so after swimming what felt like a long time, I looked up and was swimming at a 90 degree angle away from the buoy. Duh. I finally made it, copped a float on my swim floaty and just did some flutter kicking. I figured I would just sail on in with the waves to the beach, but once again, I looked up and had no idea where I was. Oh, 90 degrees in the wrong direction. Again.

I love how quickly my body adapts to the cold. I love how when I swim I can completely clear my head. I love that I’m not wearing a wetsuit and many of the other swimmers are. like I’m built for this and a badass. So many things are wrong with my health, but I am “normal” in the water.

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