Tonight is the first night of training for the Hudson River swim. I'm taking advantage of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training program, which prepares people for participation in the society's endurance fundraising events. The training is aimed at all fitness levels and ages and will be personalized to meet my training needs. This should reassure me, but I am terrified.
All day, and for weeks leading up to today, I have anticipated this evening with dread. What if I can't keep up? What if I've forgotten how to swim over the long winter? What if they all laugh at me? What if my suit spontaneously combusts? When the butterflies come, I try to focus on one essential truth. I am buoyant.
I have always been buoyant. I remember being a tiny child, floating on the surface of the water with my mother pulling me by a toe. Others had to work at floating, had to learn to relax and let the water carry them, but I never had any trouble. This meant, of course, that I was terrible at "tea party", rarely able to get cross legged before I resurfaced, generally, backside first.
That buoyancy extends to other parts of my life. Crisis after crisis, drama after drama, I touch bottom, sometimes briefly, sometimes long enough to feign a sip of tea, but inevitably, I rise. Sometimes the trip back to the surface is disorienting. Sometimes I end up with hair in my eyes, missing my swimsuit bottoms, choking and sputtering, facing the wrong direction entirely, but I always make it back.
The next few months of training I am sure I will have many days of aches and pains, laziness and pouting. I will question this decision at every step, because, that too, is inherent to my nature. I've started this blog in the hopes that on those days you will help me rise. Tell me to suck it up. Cheer me on. Remind me that the goal of this swim is to save lives. They need my help and I'll need yours.
If you'd like to help me in the fight to cure cancer, please follow the link to my personal page and donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. http://pages.teamintraining.org/wch/Hudson11/egallagbvf
