Unzipped
caring intensely about the baby-steps, all while detaching crisply from the scoreboard… fair description of the zigzaggy paths i’ve struggled to stay course on these past months? hosting my inner peace through these times has been one of the toughest so far—there were moments when life kept sinking into this labyrinth, nested by seemingly unzippable paradoxes—and i’d be lying to myself if i said i’ve magically seen through all of it. god bless that heart of mine though: at the dawn of my twenty-third, i plunged into the darkest, chilliest lake and might have stumbled upon that key.
i had a rough night before, constantly awakened by all sorts of roughness i pictured myself swimming into. i dreamed of how i’d feel surrounded by hundreds—arms and legs grabbed, goggles kicked and leaking—choked by splashes spurred by others desperately reaching for air. i also braced myself for the chilliness, murkiness, and fogginess that was bound to surface at some point. i ended up handling these smoother than i expected—i guess the ice baths and blindfolded pool laps helped.
but i was pretty certain that, seconds into the swim, i had the deepest claustrophobic encounter of my life and was on the verge of a panic attack. upon contact with the water, i lost touch with my extremities—i couldn’t locate my center of gravity, nor could i feel my body putting out any watt. it was quite the strangest feeling. i only remembered to start exhaling when i finally felt something: my lungs bloating and burning. then, shortness of breath caught up, and i started stroking like a madman for the tiniest gasp of air. i had no clue if my heart was beating, lol, but if it was, i’m sure it was through the roof. it was quite the burst.
for the next few minutes, all that occupied my mind was that it’d probs be easier if i just kept panicking and forgot to start thinking. it was quite the nicest wish. the instant i realized what i was feeling was normal for the very first minutes—and that it would phase—i figured i had lost track of space and time. despite the buoys, which would fade as blurriness built, i couldn’t make sense of directionality, and it became improbable even for myself to believe in the inner pep talk. funny enough, i also discovered i couldn’t actually hear anything. that’s when it all came collapsing onto me. why could i not hear my heartbeat? worse—why could i not hear the bubbling of my exhales or the splashes of my kicks? crap. the space i was navigating through almost immediately became this vacuum of nothingness—air slowly sucked out, darkness gradually compounded, vibrations unable to render any response.
i couldn’t remember how far into the swim i started to acclimatize, but it was for sure a rewarding stride. getting over it was not merely becoming used to the cold, the dark, the dead silence. it was co-existing with the fear, the anxiety, the sucker-punch of wrecking the tip of a 70.3-mile arc (have faith in the body taking care of you!). again, i failed to pinpoint—maybe that’s the whole point—but somewhere along the way i figured there’s no getting over it. why stifle what i viscerally feel? why exhaust myself to solve the unsolvable? perhaps the paradoxes are the very texture of the paths themselves. perhaps it is okay to keep moving forward while simultaneously falling apart.
transcribing my feelings into alphabets has meant a ton to me. this time, while typing, it occurred to me that what i’ve been struggling with—attaching while detaching, both intensely—is, in reality, very much alive and possible. because reality should be my personal construct of overlapping games of varying depths. i just need to choose which ones to treat as finite games, and which ones as infinite.
toast to the finite wins, while staying rooted in the infinity that keeps play, possibility, and freedom afresh. what else can i ask for on day one of my twenty-third?