bubbles

I started swimming again this week. It's long overdue. I needed something to help me clear my head and also rehab my lousy body. There are substitutes for happiness. I tend to go for food. It doesn't even have to be good food. It's a feeling of hollowness, not hunger, that drives me to go for another late-night sandwich, another bowl of cereal, another whatever.

The swimming is my way of skirting the larger problem. I'm dealing with the symptoms, not the disease. There is no cure for the disease. It just is.

So it goes.

Swimming is great because you can hide in the water. You're isolated from sound. You don't have to listen to anyone. You're not required to talk. It also moves your attention from the laundry list of day-to-day concerns and aggravations to a very short list of unavoidable, easy-to-understand obligations. You need to remember to breathe. You have to keep from drowning. Everything else is secondary.

The downside, at least this week, is that I'm horribly out of shape. I'm in the worst shape of my life and it shows. 20 laps in a short pool at lunch equals me feeling like death warmed over for a couple of hours. It will get a little easier. I'm only committing myself to three times a week with the hopes of increasing my swim to about 40 laps per session. Beyond that, who knows? Maybe I'll lift some weights or do some kind of roadwork.

I'm trying not to get too complicated. I've got plenty of that already.