Coming Up For Air

On transformation.

I feel myself transforming lately, slowly but surely, and I’m trying to describe what it feels like. I’m a late bloomer, always have been. I’ve always trusted that I come to things when I’m ready for them and for as long as I remember it’s taken longer than I’d like. They say as you get older time speeds up. When I was young a humid New England summer felt like dragging a stick through a stream. Time was heavy then. I languidly pushed my way through. It always felt like a struggle to get somewhere. I was anxious for the pace of the adulthood I imagined I would have.

At some point everything accelerated and never stopped, later than I would’ve probably liked but it did happen. I flung myself toward every new thing I could find. Figured out a few things I was good at. Talking to people chief among them. I think that was the most myself I’d ever felt until now.

Then I hit a 7 year roadblock. Give or take. A relationship that was like a slow whirlpool spinning me downward. Something I’m still struggling to make sense of. I have so many regrets and questions for myself. It’s painful to look back and feel like it was time wasted. I’ll write about it at some point but I don’t think I have the distance yet. I look back and just see mistakes. I thought my heart was big enough to fill a hole for someone and still pump with the same vigor it had. It’s big but no one’s heart is that big. I fell in and have been digging myself out for the last 3 years mostly without knowing it. Some desperate kick of my spirit pushed off the bottom and sent me slowly floating upward. I’m not out yet but I think I can see the sun.

The last year has felt like learning how to swim. You can’t stop the flow of time but you can swim against it, and in doing so you can find something steady, directional. It helps to get a push, also. I’ve always been lucky about that. I’m extremely pushable it would seem. In my fumbling in the dark I’ve found someone beautiful. An iridescent creature for whom swimming is so simple and natural she finds time to push my floundering spirit closer to the surface than it has ever been. When I look at her I see her laughing and I know I’m headed the right direction. More than that, I can remember what it feels like to breathe. I know I’m still swimming but it feels like I’m not drowning anymore.

I don’t know what I will be when I come up for air, but I have the benefit of the work of getting there. I must be strong to have held my breath for so long a time. To be able to kick hard enough, and in the right direction my legs and my instincts are good still. Though I cannot see my limbs and I can’t be sure where my instincts are leading me yet. I know those things about myself now. I’m confident in them.

I’m navigating the strong currents now, before I reach the sun, and they are as hard as anything has been. I feel pulled back out to sea and suspect always will. I’m developing the muscles I need to push myself up out of the rip tide for the first time in a long time. This last intangible muscle is self-love and forgiveness. Forgiving myself for the things I did and said even more for the things I didn’t do and didn’t say. Knowing myself and loving what I come to know.

These depths have been comfortable. The water is warm. I will return to them by and by, but they are still the depths and they are not where I belong. I will pull myself from the water and toss myself again into the dappled sun and I’m excited for whatever new creature I will be.