100 Days

 This past Saturday marked a milestone that I am proud of - 100 days of consecutive cold dips.  For once, it was not something that I purposely set out to achieve or even considered when I took my first tentative steps into the lake back in late January.  Instead, it was something that seemed to evolve organically over time.  A few days strung together into a week, became two weeks, turned into a month, and continued to progressively add up until I found myself standing on the beach Saturday morning, surrounded by friends and celebrating this achievement.

One hundred days is a big number, and many changes can occur over that time: seasons change, feelings change, perceptions change, and as I discovered, we also change.  

The first time I dipped, I intended for this to be a once-a-week addition to my training routine; a way of introducing full-body recovery to off-set the marathon training I was busy with.  I hoped that it would help ease some of the new aches and pains I was encountering and was also something I had been curious about trying.  I was hooked right away.  An untimely cold postponed my next few dips until early February when I returned to the water.  Once again I was amazed by how healing this practice felt, and how unintimidated I was to be in a large body of water.  As someone who almost drowned when she was a tot and who has never quite attained a comfortable relationship being in the water, this was quite surprising to me.  Something was different about this compared to my many attempts at becoming a swimmer.  Maybe it was the fact that I was not trying to fight my way into it.  I was doing quite the opposite - surrendering to it all.  Allowing myself to be pushed and pulled, to experience whatever met me at the shoreline, and to embrace the fact that I had very little control over what was taking place.  Instead of being frightening or unsettling, this handing over of control was a welcome release.  All I needed to do was to pack my dipping bag and show up.  And keep showing up -- and that is where the real magic happened.

There is a saying that goes along the lines of "Until you learn to love yourself, no one else can truly love you".  I feel that similar logic can be applied to the act of showing up.  Until you learn how to show up for yourself, you will not know how to truly show up for others or will feel that others know how to show up for you.  The commitment to be present for yourself on a consistent basis is not a small one.  It often feels much easier to put your needs on the back burner to tend to others, and it often feels more rewarding as well.  Putting your oxygen mask on first is what we are reminded to do, but seldom feel comfortable following through with it.  I quickly realized that taking this time for myself allowed me to feel like I had more time and space to give others.  It was as if slowing down for a few moments each day lingered and allowed me to see that this same type of purposeful slowness could be applied elsewhere in my life.  As my mind began to slow, my thoughts became clearer and I felt more open to change and uncertainty.  Instead of my usual adversarial mindset of putting my head down and plowing through, I approached unsettled times with open eyes and awareness, attempting to find grace where force often existed.  This is not to say that things magically became easier; what changed was my ability to tolerate and adapt to unexpected forks in the road.

To sum it up, in the last 100 days: I have laughed and cried; I have held space for others and had the same given to me; I have been awestruck and wave-struck; I have made big decisions both big and small; I have watched and felt the seasons change; I have celebrated sunrises and moonrises; I have communed with nature; and I have grown exponentially.  Most importantly, I have rediscovered parts of myself that lie sleeping under many layers of misinformation and outdated facades; forever grateful for the water and its ability to slough away the old and unearth buried treasures.