Past lives

In contrast to how the week started, I am feeling the excitement in the air that morning. I am going through the days easier when I feel content and liberated. When I feel belonged to the environment that I am in and when I am in clarity. I am walking down the stairs and heading to the French bakery in my street, ordering my usual and sitting on the bench outside. Feeling the sun on my cheek, putting my headphones on and then instantly hearing the question, "could I sit here". I am opening up some space for her and she's sitting next to me. After few moments of eating and drinking in silence, I am making a random comment and we are starting talking. I am not feeling sure about whether I am feeling a connection to her because I am looking at her face from few centimeters or not. But then she's starting telling me her story and we are talking about her past, work, life and some other things too. She's also constructing few sentences that are leaving a mark on me and I am leaving my ten minutes coffee break after an hour with a different spectrum of feelings.

I think the swimming workout is starting long before that day, when I am starting the day. From early morning hours, I am mentally preparing for the swim that I am planning later in the day. Hours are passing, I am still trying to convince myself that I can do it today, that I can increase my baseline today. Then I am thinking to myself that I am now able to swim without any swimming accessory or props the distance that I couldn't swim last year these times. My pace is still same but now my technique is better, even though I am pausing in between laps every other lap to decrease my pulsation, I am able to complete a swim without any artificial help. There will be a day soon enough that I will increase my baseline to 1,5 kilometers, I am thinking to myself. Then few more hours are passing and I am sitting on the yoga mat, I am trying to wind down and slowly go inwards. Few thoughts are rushing on to my mind, I am thinking about them and then letting them go. After few minutes, couple more are coming through and I am letting go.

Then finally I am entering the water, exhaling deeply, I am letting myself sink to the bottom of the pool and then coming back to surface and pushing from the wall to start my first stroke. Swimming the first lap quite fast just to warm up but then my heart rate is increasing rapidly. Then after few more laps, I am finding myself in an interesting state. I am pushing my right hand strongly to the back and that's how I am able to extend my left arm longer to front. I am feeling the extension tension on the left side of my body and I am slowly rotating to the left and to the right. That moment, couple of things are settling down on my mind. After all these years of improving technique, thousands of repetitions, hours of feedback and at that moment I am finally feeling what all my instructors had all been talking about. In order to extend to front, I also need to push well to the back. Then I am trying to practice more but then while thinking about it, I am losing my own rhythm and getting a momentary setback.

This moment of technique realization is reminding me something that I have been going through in the past year. I am realizing some of my behavioural patterns, I am trying to fix them but in order to fix them for every single occassion I need a lot of practice and experience. Also mental strength, some serenity and a good mood. When I learn that new technique, first I know that it exists. I am not able to perform it myself but I am seeing other people do it, my instructors are telling me about it, my therapist is telling me about it. Then years are passing, seasons with different life experiences are passing and I am finding myself in that moment when for the first time ever, I am able to perform that new pattern that I had been trying so hard to adopt. And that is giving me so much confidence and sense of accomplishment that I am feeling really close to crying underwater.

I am realizing that I am able to perform that stroke with a better technique now. But now I am not at that point where I am able to apply it to every single stroke, I am thinking to myself. While trying to adopt this new technique, my muscle memory will keep returning me back to my old technique. In between these two different techniques there will be strokes that I will swallow some water, my heart rate will increase but then I will exhale one more time, inhale one more time and I will try one more time, I am thinking to myself. It will take time, it will feel uncomfortable to change to this new technique that I am about to reach but I will try with a good faith and consistent dedication.

Then I am starting to sign off from work, adding few more details to the document that I am working on that day and closing my laptop. Going out for a mental health walk, getting some food for dinner, eating and then going out for a sunset walk this time. Taking colorful sunset photos as I am mentally preparing my backpack for the journey lying in front of me. I am feeling scared at one hand, but I am also reassuring myself about that now I have a different technique. I am deciding which books to take with me, my notebook to write my journals among few other things. I am feeling the liberation of letting go, flowing with what life might bring in front of me and focusing on my next climb with the upcoming season of fall.

"Talih insana bütün nimetlerini verse, onları tadabilecek bir ruh gerekir. Bizi mutlu eden; bir şeyin sahibi olmak değil, tadına varmaktır."
— Montaigne