Life in the Medium Lane

The dressing room was completely empty this morning as I prepared for my morning swim. I love a calm swimming pool…a quiet dressing room…perfect morning. As I walked out of the dressing room and into the pool, a little girl inside jumped for joy. Just me! I can pick ANY lane I want! YAY!

As I looked across the pool, with it’s quietly rippling surface, the six lane lines floating unassumingly along the top of the water, I glanced at the shallow end of the lap lanes…and felt all my exhilaration fall away. There, on the deck, at the end of the pool stood the label for each lane. You know the little yellow bi-fold signs that say “Fast,” “Medium,” and “Slow?” As I scanned those signs, I could almost hear the little girl inside cry out, “Nooooo!”

See, now I can’t choose any lane I want…I have to take the lane I’m “supposed” to be in. This is my paradigm.

Now freeze frame here for a moment. Picture me, standing in front of a completely open pool, thinking to my black and white conscience, I must choose the lane I am supposed to go in…medium, I think…yeah, I am a medium swimmer. To be quite honest, I have no frame of reference for which lane I should be in. I have never had someone tap me on the shoulder and say, “You really should be in the medium lane.” But I put myself there anyway. Because somewhere in the back of my mind I have the belief that I haven’t put in the time, effort or haven’t the skill to swim in the fast lane, and thus don’t deserve to be there.

Even when no one else is in the pool with me.

The weight of this revelation and the implication in my life sat with me as I stroked my way through my workout. With each stroke, I wondered how much faster I would have to swim to be a “fast swimmer.” I wondered who would have to define that for me? Would I ever believe it of myself, without acknowledgement from an outside expert? How do I hold myself back in my life due to this same belief?

And then, a single thought entered my mind and hung there in the splish splash rhythm of my freestyle stroke…a thought striking enough that I stopped swimming.

My adult, wise self had a meeting with that little girl inside. And said something to her that I have said to my children countless times before. Wise Cari said to Baby Girl Cari-

EVERYTHING is a choice. Choosing to follow the rules is a choice. Choosing to label myself a “medium” swimmer is a choice. Choosing to get into the “medium” lane is a choice AND choosing to believe that I am not good enough and must rely on someone else to tell me that I am is a choice. Now CHOOSE to stop doubting and CHOOSE to get your butt over to the fast lane.

Which is exactly what I did. Maybe just for today, I swam in the fast lane. Tomorrow, perhaps I will swim in the medium lane again. I did find myself pushing a little harder, resting a little less and being more conscious of the technical aspects of my stroke, and I realized that, frankly, I am not sure if I WANT to swim in the “fast” lane. However, whether I want it or not is not relevant to this post. What is most important is that, regardless of whether I want to live life in the fast lane or the medium lane, or even in the slow lane, I never forget that I have the power to CHOOSE.

A Day at the Pool

I love the pool! For a sun-worshipping (with sunblock these days, of course) fish like me, the pool has always been sort of Mecca.

Sadly, since I have had kids, I have developed an unnatural fear of the public pool. Something about the high numbers of virtually unsupervised, unobservant, and relatively ill behaved children mixed with the imminent danger of drowning has kept me far away from the swimming pool for the last 7 years. Now, that’s not to say that we haven’t gone to our friends private pools, but nothing says summer quite like a day at the city pool. As I re-read this paragraph, I think it is all really sad that I let this obsessive thought process get the best of me.

Anyway, empowered by 2 weeks of Red Cross swimming lessons and the desire to get out of the house and away from the computer, TV and mountain of laundry, the kids and I spent our first day at the public pool yesterday. You know I learned a few things about myself and about life.

1) You CAN go back.

In the right frame, it is possible to recapture some of that uncomplicated joy that you had when you were a kid. Part of this is vicarious. It is nearly impossible not to embrace the joy your kids feel in that moment….when your six year old comes running from the slide and says, “Sometimes, it’s so fun, that you just HAVE to SCRREAMMMM!” And in that moment, just for a second, be a kid again. It was a beautiful and poignant moment, and I was so blessed to be able to both observe and experience it at the same time.

2) In order to experience this you have to stop being an observer and start actively participating!

This was really hard for me! I am the sideline mom…I have a tendency to sit back and watch my husband play with my munchkins, watching them interact and play is a really joyful thing for me, but there are times when I long to get in the game. Today I did, and I was richly rewarded for it!

So I went home again…to my childhood….sunny days spent with friends playing in the water, getting out to soak in the sun and then, as soon as the cool droplets of water have dried, heading back into the pool again. Eating crazy snack combinations like dill pickles and blue sno cones and just relaxing with no agenda, no schedule and no worries. Absolute bliss! There is nothing like that exhausted, toasty warm, and absolutely starving feeling you have after a day at the pool!

Hmmm…now I’m hungry…I’m gonna go eat some watermelon and have a seed spitting contest with my son (I have to up my game, he’s gotten really good!)….So long for the weekend…..but maybe, just maybe next week, I’ll see YOU at the pool?!