Uncharted expeditions

I am putting one more stroke into the water and then feeling the freezing cold current through my entire body. All my fears are actualizing in front of me with the blurry sight that I am having. I am trying to focus on the technique and keep moving forward but at every second I am thinking something different. The fishes passing by, algaes touching my fingers, correct head and body position, and all the uncertainties that I am in. Meanwhile I am thinking what if the current takes me to the deep waters. Then I am keeping my sight at the ship on the horizon to reassure myself. Probably an important thing I am missing lately in my life I am thinking to myself, a little reassurance. Sometimes I am choosing two other swimmers far away and keep going back and forth between them. I am telling myself that I am not alone and I am safe. All this time that I have voyaged alone, sometimes I feel the need to hear from someone else that I am doing just fine. Shouldn't take that much to sooth someone, I am thinking to myself. But why is it so hard to acknowledge one another, to make them feel seen, I am wondering. Why do we have unrealistic bars that we know that we will never meet and why do we have those sets of conditions before showing the slightest sympathy to others.

I feel like I am confronting my darkest fears and anxieties with these open water swim workouts. I am alone in the water. I am tired from all these life altering decisions. Every summer, facing another level of ascend and challenge. I am swimming in the deep waters and I am as powerful as my next stroke. At one moment, I am looking back and getting amazed by how much I have come. I am remembering the times when I couldn't even float in the water and now I am swimming in the foreign waters. Sometimes I feel like, I am putting myself in this kind of situations on purpose. I am making up all these workouts for myself knowing that I would put my best effort to embrace and get through that workout. Probably my inner child couldn't even imagine some of the roads I have endured. On the other hand, I am thinking to myself that what else do I have. If I don't keep moving, what can I do better. Then I am feeling somewhat warmer water currents touching my skin as I hear the splash sounds coming from the pier where kids are jumping to the water and screaming. That moment I am realizing that I am trying to create some memories which never existed before. I am trying to open a channel to my childhood and tell him that you will be okay. Whatever might happen in that home, don't get scared. You are brave, and smart and you will endure. I want to sooth him, listen to him and reassure him that everything is going to be okay. His older self will see all the things he wasn't seen, hear all the things that no one heard and his older self will acknowledge all his being, with the ugliest and prettiest parts. As is.

Filling half of my suitcase with the books that I have been curating in my to-do list for some months. For one book, I am going through three, maybe four different bookstores and finally I am finding it in the last one. I know that I can hold on to triathlon, good movies and few lines that touches my scars from few books. It's been a tough journey so far, but I know that the only way forward is to create my own story, with what I have got. I enjoy things and perspectives that creates and cultivates. That makes me feel like that I am understood. Like how I feel seen when I recognise another melancholic soul. I am thinking that even though we don't know each other, we know each other. Those pastel sunsets, sky and moon photos, quotes and feeling the urge to find a residency that one can belong. I know that even though we don't know each other and we probably had totally different backgrounds; we've gone through similar experiences filled with disappointments and abandonments. And I guess that's how souls meet. I am telling to myself, probably there are still tears to be shed through the pages of all these books. With each story, I feel like I will realize things about myself. Then I am closing my suitcase, grabbing my hiking bag and heading to the airport at 5am in the morning. I am feeling grumpy and unease. Why is it that I am feeling troubled the day before the travel, every single time I am wondering.

Then I am feeling disappointed again, in the relationships that I have no control of. This is not how I imagined this I am thinking to myself. I am starting to internalize the stages I am going through, valuing someone, getting disappointed, trying to communicate, not being able to pass my sentiments across, taking one step back to distance myself from them and ending up isolating myself. Then I am feeling bad but they never acknowledge and they never listen. Why am I getting surprised with this I am thinking to myself. I am realizing that I need to let go of this too. For once, I am feeling the need to acknowledge the fact that I am not valued as much as I think I am valued in that relationship. And that's where I find my liberation from the all the overwhelming wheel of perspectives.

I am then seeing the title. The title that I have put three seasons ago and never wrote it. I am thinking, so much have happened since I have written this title. People came and left, people passed away, hearts broken, journeys made to the end of the world and especially seasons past. Then I am looking one more time to the front, to endure one more workout to reach those neutral perspectives. The ones that keep me floating through any kind of wave and conditions.

"He nurtures all beings with no wish to take possession of.
He devotes all his energy but has no intention to hold on to the merit.
When success is achieved, he seeks no recognition.
Because he does not claim for the credit, hence shall not lose it."
— Tao Te Ching, Laozi