I almost drowned once. It was the summer of 1999, I believe (funny to think there was a time I couldn't imagine not remembering the specific whens and hows of my life and now it all just blends together into the great "Time Before" when I wasn't quite a child any more but I still wasn't an adult). During a weekend off at Camp Eberhart, a large group of fellow counselors took a trip to the Sleeping Bear Dunes on Lake Michigan. The water was rough that day, the winds strong, and the waves fierce and high. We were all swimming and splashing and having a grand time at a bit of a sand bar quite a ways from the shore, and somehow I got mixed around in the waves and lost my footing. I remember paddling and paddling, choking and gasping for air as I broke through the surface, but then immediately getting pulled back under the current in the smacking of the waves and the whipping of the wind. I felt quite certain that I was about to drown; I simply couldn't hold my breath any more and I had a moment of complete clarity that this must be how it all ends right before everything started to go black. And then suddenly, miraculously, a friend grabbed my arm, pulled me up and back onto the sandbar, which was only a few mere feet away. I sputtered and heaved for a moment, and then pretended that everything was fine, I hadn't in fact almost died, I was fine. I was fine. "I'm fine." The words rolled so easily off my tongue, the simplest of lies when in fact I was anything but. And the sandbar had been, that whole time, just a few feet to the left.
I am so trained to do this, to automatically say "I am fine," even if it seems that the world is crumbling at my feet. I am fine. But am I? Right now I am paddling and paddling through this life feeling like I am always just barely staying afloat. And everyone else makes it look so easy. Somehow I have lost sight of my sandbar, lost my footing, slipped a little bit too far where the current is strong and the wind is fierce and the waves are huge. Am I drowning? I can't even tell.
It has been a rough week, for no particular reason other than the kids are back to school and I am once again trying to balance motherhood and work and homework and school lunches and paperwork and laundry and dishes and mopping and vacuuming and a million other things that are taking precedence over just being happy. I have a good life, I know this. I have beautiful, smart, well-behaved, happy children. I have a supportive, loving, attentive husband who does his best to really try to pitch in and help me however he can. I have a wonderful sister who listens to me complain and reminds me that the way I am feeling is normal. I am fine. I am fine. I am fine. I just wish it was all easier, or I didn't make it so hard, or some combination of the two. None of this has to be so difficult, so why do I put so much pressure on myself to do everything perfectly? It doesn't matter in the long run. I'm terrified that some day I will look back on these years and wonder why I didn't enjoy them more. There is so very much to enjoy.
We are lucky to have a long 3-day weekend, so I'm going to swim a little to the left and try to find that sandbar again. Until next time, here are some back-to-school pictures of my littles. They are doing well and love their teachers and their classrooms. Ava loves Kindergarten and is working on learning to read. Aiden made some new friends in his class and has had a very easy transition to second grade. All is well.
