Caught in the Undertow

Today... is a struggle. It is difficult to fight against getting pulled under. 

I guess I need to look at how you successfully escape a riptide. You don't get out of it by struggling, or pushing forward. You get to safety by swimming along the current, parallel to shore, to "safety", until the pull is no longer there.

It's easier for me to fight, to struggle, to try and make headway when the pushback is stronger than I am. I find it extremely difficult to relax and go with the flow, hoping it will let up before I give up. At least when I'm fighting, I feel like I am attempting to do something about my situation. 

And I usually feel like I am swimming on an unguarded beach, because there is no one to jump in after me. No one stronger to pull me out, no one watching over me. 

I suppose I should to reframe this into something positive. After all, I do know the proper way to get to safety. I just kind of want to fight it for a bit because that is what comes naturally to me.

I can't control the forces of nature. I can't predict them. And often, I feel like I can't protect myself from them either. "It's a big enough umbrella, but I always seem to end up getting wet." 


Popular posts from this blog

Stormy Weather

It's interesting what happens when you underestimate developing disturbances. You watch a potential storm form, look at the trajectory, foolishly listen to early forecasts that say nothing much will come of it, then, a couple days later, act surprised and unprepared when you have an actual hurricane on your hands. I'm not talking Fred. Although the Remnants of Fred is still a phrase I heard on the news last night.  I'm not talking Grace. Although she hit Tulum (& I quote the weatherdude, "That place in Mexico with the pyramids." WtH?!) that first hit as a Cat 1, crossed land (& I guess a couple pyramids, angering the gods) and will hit land again as a Cat 2. I'm referring to Henri. You know, that disturbance that formed off Bermuda, the home of two dimensional pyramids, also known as triangles. The storm flippantly told, "Hello Henri, Goodbye Henri" that is now barreling down on New England, which seldom takes hurricanes seriously. Storms are
Read more

Storm Warnings

Here we go again...  The most recent storm that passed through had an interesting progression. It began as a disturbance, became a depression, developed into a hurricane, got torn apart over the mountains, remained a storm to be watched, downgraded to a depression, regained strength and was once again a storm, and finally made landfall as a hurricane again, wrecking havoc with tornadoes and torrential rains. The headlines at one point read, "The Remnants of Fred" and I realized how aptly it described me.    I'm volatile like that. And, to be honest, no one really takes me seriously or adequately prepares, only to be caught off guard when I finally make landfall. Yeah, THEN I make news! Fred just sort of became a perfect allegory for what I am currently weathering. (See what I did there?! I can still be clever. And creative. And abstract.)  So, once again, I enter the blogosphere in an effort to chase away the clouds, and fog, and other inclement analogies. I could have j
Read more