I was down at the river earlier today, looking for some relief from the unpleasantly hot weather. And contrary to what I usually do when I go down there with the dog—walking around a bit, letting him go nuts running up and down the woods and into the river—today I wanted to go swim a little bit.
The river near my house is more like a creek than a river, but it’s one of those lovely little creeks nested inside the woods where there’s always at least some water flowing and small ponds are forming pretty much everywhere along its path.
Some are quite small and shallow, perfect for my dog to walk into and then do absolutely nothing other than standing there cooling himself; he doesn’t like water and doesn’t want to swim, and I’m not gonna try to force him to do it because I care about the integrity of my limbs.
But others are big enough, and deep enough, to do a little swimming. And a little swimming is precisely what I did earlier today, while freaking out the dog in the process, which subsequently put him in zoomies mode. Anyway, that’s not what I want to write about, because what I do want to discuss is how I approach going for a swim down in the river.
The main thing to know about swimming in a river like this one is that the water is cold. And it feels even colder on a day like today when the air outside is very warm. And so you can’t just go down to the river and throw yourself in.
Or, well, you can, it’s just not a smart thing to do. So many people died doing precisely that, and I don’t plan to add myself to that list. Which is why the process should go something like this: you get in, you get your feet wet, you then lower yourself in, get all your legs wet and spend a few minutes getting used to the cold water, you then get your belly wet, and once your body has acclimatised, you dive in.
That’s how it should go. In reality, it goes something like this: I get in with my feet and I think «fuck this is cold». I spend a few minutes thinking that maybe I can just be happy there, with my feet in the cold water, and swimming isn’t necessary after all. Then I feel like an idiot because it’s just cold water, and I swam in the river countless times before. I then lower myself in, get all my lower body inside the water and think «fuck, this is really cold, I don’t know if I want to do this». I stay there for a few minutes, wondering if I should either give up or just jump in. And after much internal debate, I decide to go for it, I jump in, and everything is fine. Being in the water is refreshing, and all those thoughts I had just a few short seconds earlier are now gone.
And the experience is so familiar with many other situations in life: we often overthink and over-analyse. And after we overcome the inevitable inner resistance, things, more often than not, turn out just fine.
So I guess the lesson for myself here is don’t rush, but also don’t overthink.
— M