Why I Swim: Part II

My rekindling with the pool was in early 2018, nearly seven years since I had formally quit collegiate swimming. Now when I got into the pool, it felt like a dip into a warm spring (it helped the pool at the Y was heated warmer than most lap pools). I made a deal with myself, as long as I showed up, got the suit, cap and goggles on… I’d done the hardest work. The pool had become a place to be kind and slow. I would jump in, warm up until my muscles felt loose and my breathing was controlled and steady. I let my mind wander and I wouldn’t worry about intervals. I began to learn swimming was always a friend on its own, the pressure that existed was in my own head.

Winter bloomed into spring, which blended into summer. Lucas’ job was in residential construction, permitting to sale, and his job put house hunting on the forefront of our minds. End of summer we placed an offer on a home that didn’t take and a few short weeks later, his company unexpectedly closed it’s doors. Lucas was unemployed and two weeks later we discovered we were pregnant. The forest fires that year were heavy and I remember sitting in my office at work looking out from 32 floors, barely being able to see beyond a few blocks and feeling like the air shared my sentiments. What the hell was God doing? 

I was sick, the pregnancy wasn’t right from the start. Two months came and went and after many appointments, ultrasounds, phone calls and sleepless nights, we lost our twins. Lucas was still unemployed, the air had cleared but my heart and head had not. I dove into the pool quicker and harder than ever before. It brought clarity to my mind and cooled my nerves. For the first time, I needed to be in the pool at 5:30 in the morning. I let rage and fear out in that pool, it was a place to lick my wounds and hear God out above my self-pity. 

Twins ultrasound around 6 weeks

Winter blew in and my body began to feel normal, less hollow. We were still in the midst of storms but community, friends and the pool kept Lucas and I grounded. Four months passed and in the middle of January, Lucas received word he had been offered a position, it was a good one too. A week later he began work. At the end of that week, I went to the doctor and found out I was eight weeks pregnant with Hudson. His timing and plan is not ours but it is perfect. 

So I was pregnant and this time it felt healthier and by healthier I was sicker than a dog which according to most women is an excellent sign. I made it to the pool when I could muster the courage and once the second trimester hit, the pool once again became my sanctuary. One morning when I went swimming, when I was around 17 weeks pregnant, I felt Hudson for the first time. I had completed a 100 (four laps), had flipped turned and was streamlining when I felt Hudson do a somersault, he felt like a fish. I stopped and stood up in the middle of the lane and yelped. A man water walking in the lane next to me jumped as I cackled louding “he flipped in me”. Mind you 17 week pregnant women don’t really look pregnant. So the man wearily smiled and nodded his head. Yes, I am the crazy lady at the Y. 

With a baby on the way and two jobs secured we aggressively started looking at homes. We found one needing lots of love and work but it was perfect. Around this time we learned Hudson would be born with a unilateral cleft lip and palate. I had many concerns and fears and I eagerly took them to the Lord while in the water. Running was no longer an outlet I could meet God through, the relaxin hormone had made my knees too loose, but swimming was still there. 

The last trimester I barely saw the pool and not by choice, we moved and needed to quickly renovate the first level of the home so it was liveable. Hudson came in early September and I was shocked at how simple and slow life became. I was in no rush to “get my body back”, my body had taken on so many shapes and sizes in the last decade, there wasn’t one to return to. The fall slowly wound down into Christmas lights and dark afternoons, Hudson’s first surgery was on the horizon. We wouldn’t receive a date until a week before, we just knew it would be somewhere around his six month mark.

April 2019

I took this picture of the house from the backyard when we came through on the first look. It was wild and woolly, and was asking for love.

The slow buzz of anxiety had returned to my body and I knew where I needed to go. I called my mother-in-law and asked if she would be willing to watch Hudson for an hour or two one morning a week so I could start swimming again. She is a Physical Therapist (specializing in women’s health) and was more than willing to help. My first time back in the pool after having Hudson was wild, I no longer had a watermelon in my core and I was shocked to see how weak my muscles had become. I was able to swim a few times before we got the call from Children’s. Hudson’s surgery was on March 11th and a week later, the world began to shutter and close to Covid. 

Soon enough in July of 2020 I was able to get back in a pool and I have been swimming weekly ever since, outside of taking six weeks off after having Jack. Being in the pool during Covid grounded me back to past times when things were out of control, hard and scary. Somehow everything moved on and things were okay. Swimming has woven itself around me once more but it no longer suffocates, it comforts and provides a space for me to process, pray, construct to do lists, etc. The pool equated to punishment when I was little, I had to be there. I said earlier it was the pressure that existed in my own head that caused my anxiety, this was because swimming was all I had. I resented it. Again, this may be a matter of perspective and maybe too allegorical but it’s how I felt at sixteen and twenty-one. Now, I have so much more in my life and my happiness is not dependent on how I swim and where it will take me.

I know I’m first and foremost a child of God. He has made a way back to Him, time and time again. I have a loving, safe home with a husband and two babies. I have friends, and sisters and brothers in Christ (my church community) supporting and cheering me on. I have translatable skills that have matured through my career. I am far beyond what I do in the pool or more importantly how swimming has strengthened and shaped my body to this day. I am so much more than my body. 

Jack and I in October of 2021 (Kubota Garden, p/c Dorothy Huynh)

This has been a huge mental shift because it is at the core of what helped me recover during postpartum. I learned I cannot place my happiness in how toned or skinny or healthy my body was three months postpartum because my body at any size has brought shame and discomfort. I cannot put my stock in being wholly a mother, I will resent being one. I cannot place my identity in my husband or being a stay-at-home mom, I will resent my place in life. To be straight, the reformed way of saying all this is swimming was an idol for so long, it grew from idolization to demonization - the same is true for anything we place on a pedestal. 

I honestly love that God redeemed swimming for me. It was not something I really cared about after college. He knew there were still lessons for me to learn in the pool. To be slow, to be patient, to be humble, to be mindful of the muscles and aches in my body and heart and allow time to heal. Being a mother has brought my childhood pains to the surface. Most days the boys are emotionally needy, as they should be at this age. I take the complicated hurt, mixed feelings and swim until I feel my brain release and reset. God has allowed swimming to be a place where I feel restored, it’s like getting my batteries charged up for the kids. 

The last thing I want to be very clear about is this: you do not need to have been a year round swimmer or a collegiate swimmer to start swimming now. The pool is inclusive. Nowadays more YMCAs or city pools have swim lessons available to all ages. They also provide open hours or free swim if you want to jump in and be alone and figure it out solo. Pools do have cover charges but there are financial aid opportunities if need be, you just need to ask. Someday I want to coach swimmers again and provide lessons. I’m waiting on the timing and pool space. But I loved the range of ethnicities, ages, backgrounds and stories found in the pool.

Lastly, mamas, find a way to move your body slowly and gently. It’s not a race and there isn’t a wrong way. Maybe it’s in a pool but maybe it's in a dance studio or a kickboxing class… just be kind and let time take its course. Also find something that restores you mentally, you are not working out as punishment. Stop comparing yourself to past selves or other women around you, remember where your true identity lies.