My Return to Swimming
Rediscovering my relationship with water
Shit! What now? I finally summoned the courage to visit the nearest public swimming pool. I have dreamt of coming here for months.
What will happen if I take my shirt off? Will they see the scars? Of course, they will see the scars. They are 10 cm long, dead in the center of your chest. Fuck it. Fuck them. I am going to take my shirt off.
What do these people know? They don’t know me. They don’t know what I have been through. I wear these scars proudly.
There are not a lot of people who have survived cancer and a heart attack in one year. I have been through chemotherapy, multiple operations, and a near-death experience. I am resolute. I am still here.
I have not gone swimming for years. Cancer has kept me preoccupied. I love swimming. I love the water. I love the embrace.
Standing on the pool’s edge, I look down at the chlorine-filled water. This is my moment. This is what I have been dreaming of. I made it.
I immediately regret the first few minutes in the water. Fuck, it’s cold. This was a bad idea. Was it always this cold?
I up my stroke rate to warm up. It takes a while but then it starts to set in. Eventually, the cold pool turns lukewarm. My body remembers this.
There’s intermittent silence. It falls into tempo, one stroke after another. I could do this forever. I will never get tired.
The water cleans the blood from my broken nose after falling during my heart attack, it wipes the bruises from my arm from the chemotherapy, it clears the scars from my operations. It all washes away. I am clean now — sanctified.
After swimming for about an hour, I slowly get out of the water. I sit on the side of the pool. I can’t shake the feeling that I have been reunited with an old friend. They have been waiting patiently.
