Weightless.

Most days, I cannot reach the water fast enough.

It begins at home, a tightness in my head, in my body. I can’t focus. Everything is too much, and I know that if I don’t get myself over to the YMCA, I’m in trouble.

So I grab my swim bag and car keys, fill up my water bottle in the kitchen and yell, “I’m going swimming!” And my family is relieved to hear the front door close behind me.

On the drive over, I pass sad, gray buildings and people who need homes. Sometimes, I pass tiny flames on the sidewalk, and I look away because it hurts to watch a human inhale something on fire.

But I also pass orange trees and the most delicious USA Donuts, girls playing soccer in neon purple jerseys that make me smile, and old apartments being transformed into something beautiful.

Then I turn on NPR, and I am gutted, like you are gutted, and I feel guilty and fortunate and hopeless and undone.

I can’t reach the water fast enough.

A quick change in the locker room, a hot shower, and suddenly I’m at the pool’s edge. The heat lamps shine down on me as I tighten my goggles, pull my swim cap down over my ears, and drop into the deep end of my lane.

I push off hard from the wall and begin my steady crawl to the other side. 

Let. It. Go. Let. It. Go. Let It Go. 

I reach the end, grab hold of the wall, swing my legs underneath me, spin, and push off again.

I don’t do flip turns. This is not a speed thing.

Some days, I switch it up:

It’s. All. Good. It’s. All. Good. It’s. All. Good.

Or

Be. Here. Now. Be. Here. Now. Be. Here. Now.

Three syllables. Breathe. Three syllables. That’s what matters.

Fear and anxiety and depression and anger and confusion pour out of me and into the tens of thousands of gallons of water suspending me.

I cannot stop. Twenty minutes. Thirty. Forty-five? This is forever to be weightless. 

Weightless, I lose the illusion of separateness.

Weightless, spontaneous thoughts emerge, like when I move the pen.

But it’s a funny thing, weightlessness: I know I can’t sustain it.

And I know that weight is essential—the weight of love and chosen responsibility, of family and friends, of teaching and guiding, of cooking and gardening and creating and caring. These are the weights that tether me to myself and to the life I’ve created.

It’s. All. Good. It’s. All. Good. It’s. All. Good.

The other day when I finished my laps, I asked the lifeguard, “I know this is not going to happen, but if I go under, you’ll jump in and save me, right?” I knew he had to say yes, but I needed to hear it.

“It happens more often than you think,” he said, his red-foam-rescue-tube-thingy slung across his matching red t-shirt. He looked even taller up close.

“So, you’ll jump in?” 

“Yes. I’ll get to you in, like, thirty seconds.” 

Thirty seconds? Everything can go wrong in thirty seconds. I’ll panic. I’ll sink. I’ll be a goner in thirty seconds. 

“So you’re always watching me? Even when it doesn’t look like you’re watching me?” 

“Yes.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” I said, turning toward the hot showers before he could see me tear up.

I suppose, in the end, that’s all any of us needs: A moment of weightlessness, and someone to jump in after us when we’re drowning in the deep.