Dust in our eyes, our own boots kicked up
May not see it when its stickin to your skin
But we're better off for all that we let in

I have cried for about three weeks prior to exams.  I took the exams and for a week, I have no clue what I did.  I know that my house became a little cleaner each day.  I know that I had a graduation at the end of the week.  I know I didn't cry that week.  Now that its all over: the work, strife, frenzie of people that had cards and cake and pictures...omg the pictures.  So many.  Thank God they are with clear eyes and smiles.  So many pictures from the last time that I looked like someone had hit me in the head with a hammer bc that is the way I felt.  This time though I was SO heavy.  Omg heavy.  If it's not one thing it's another. 

My husband told me to take some time off and just go to the gym and sleep.  I have tried gyms.  I have done the classes, the weights, the machines and the BIG mirrors.  There is nothing worse than a big mirror when you are heavy.  But mostly, people who are in gyms are not heavy, thus the vanity.  Going to the gym will just make my self esteem lower than it already is.  I wasn't raised in a gym.  I was raised in a pool. 

I don't know when I learned to swim.  I remember lessons when I was little.  I remember being the oldest child in the class.  Everyone in Avondale knew how to swim.  I was the odd man out.  I don't know when I joined the Avondale Waves swim team, but I was young.  Surely it was after I learned to swim. 

The Pool.  It opened on Memorial Day and closed on Labor Day.  It was the best place in the world.  We would jump, dive, swim, play.  We had a ton of friends and tons of things to do.  At some point we would swim across the pool horizontally and back meaning we were allowed to go in the deep end.  At some point, Mom quit having to take us down to the pool.  We rode bikes, walked, whatever to get there.  We would go to swim practice early in the morning and be gone till night.  Mom would bring us home for lunch, bring us lunch, send us with lunch money (which was great bc we'd go to the Pizza Cafe, the best lunch place ever). 

Then I went to highschool.  In ninth grade Casey told me to show up for swim practice at school.  Made sense to me.  I switched from playing basketball to swimming in a snap.  I lettered four years. 

Maybe its because I am a cancer.  Maybe its because when I take my contacts out, I can't see anything.  Maybe its because I just love to swim.  Idk.  But I know that the past two days I have swam and I feel at home.  I can't go very far yet, but I know I can go far.  I know that I used to swim a mile without blinking an eye.  I know that when I am swimming I feel good.  I am tired, sore but not so much that it impedes my daily comings and goings.  I love my goggles, cap, flipturning, stroke after stroke.  So I guess I will take John's suggestion, just my style: swimming my way through.