teresa

As I was begging Elliott to go to the city pool with me the other day to do laps I realized something abot myself.  He said he didn’t want to go and he would let me test it out, see how it works and then he would go with me.  Thats when I realized how being brought up to notion that if you show weekness or fear your brothers will sing the chrorus of the song ‘don’t cry out loud’ really changed my life.  I fake, act, pretend whatever I have to when I am dolng something that is new, foreign, or scary.  I walk in there like I know exactly what I am doing.  For the most part I am very thankful for this.  It allows me to try new things and get out there. 

Analyzing it further I realize this mentality does affect much of my life.  When I was a new engineer I think I asked very limited questions because I wanted to look like I knew what I was doing.  This was dangerous because the first few years of learning are critical.  At meetings with a new client I have to force myself to ask questions for understanding about their process or procedure.  Because showing a lack of knowledge or understanding is totally against my grain.

Another reflection, one of the interesting parts of married life for us has been recently we have both not been as flexible.  I think right before the wedding we were both very flexible, I guess you could say walking on eggshells, we both did what we could to keep the other happy.  Now that the stress of the big event is over we are both working to recharge.  And neither of us is being as accomodating as we were before.  So I went to the pool by myself.  Walked in there like I knew what I was doing.  Found the women’s locker room – success.  Located a lane that I could use.  And I swam over 500 yards.  I think that the lifeguard was probably sure I didn’t know exactly what I was doing as I think my swimming form is still pretty rough.  That doesn’t matter though.  I needed to prove to myself I could do it becuase Deb and I are going to do a triathlon early next month and it is a 500 yard swim.  So now I just want to do it faster, or really with less breaks which will make it faster.

So believe it or not I would like to thank my brothers for toughening me up.  Teaching me to hide my feelings.  Because that has allowed me to do and experience things that I might not have wanted to do, instead I seek out the scary to conquer!  I do however balance that toughness with a reminder that it is good to ’show your feelings’ to those you love.

Not even half way across the pool, pretty sure I would drown if I kept going Angela looked at me from over 30 yards away, disappointed.  She threw her arm up in the air, no words were needed.  She eventually swam to my safety in the 4′ deep section of the pool.  I told her, I don’t think I can do this today.  Just under the surface I was ready to cry, everything had caught up with me and tears were rising up for the first time.  Angela quickly explained to me that being emotional doesn’t work for the 4 year olds and it wasn’t going to work for me.

I wondered if the 4 year old she was referring to, the little blonde girl who swims like a damn fish in the hour before my lesson, was struggling with the idea of her mom having breast cancer – preparing for a mastectomy and chemo.  I wondered if she was selling her house, moving to a foreign city (ok so what it is Pleasanton, CA, only 4 hours away – it is still pretty damn stressful), working till 11pm just to keep her head above water, AND donated blood yesterday so she was still using that as an excuse for feeling sluggish.  Angela had no idea the number excuses to cry she was dealing with here.

Angela meant business, she wasn’t going to put up with crying.  I would like to see her and Krista duke it out, after all Krista has coined the term for our family, that’s why god gave us tears -for crying.  Well apparently god didn’t give Angela tears or at least the patience for dealing with a sorry ass adult ready to break down in the middle of her measly 45 minute lesson.  I continued on, each time on the long trek to the other side of the pool during my “break” of just kicking with the kick board I looked at the other end of the pool and I visualized jumping out and leaving Angela in the pool, stunned.  But each time I turned around and managed the best freestyle stroke I could muster gasping each 3rd stroke for a sacred breath.  At one point Angela asked me, you don’t like me very much right now, do you?  I told her no, I don’t, I couldn’t lie, I didn’t, I couldn’t even look at her I was so unhappy to be there in that pool at that moment.

There was eventually an end that was less dramatic than I had envisioned.  We raced to the end of the pool for our last lap, I think she let me tie her.  Afterwards she built me up by telling me I was doing great, and that the endurance was important, so we had to push.  Little did she know I was feeling better.  My body had finally enlivened after being sedentary all day, it felt good to have my heart pumping.  I am sure every athlete knows that some days are good, you feel like you could run forever, and some are bad – some really bad.  It’s the bad days that really teach you your own personal strength, that’s when you learn what you are made of.  Today I was made of mush – emotionally – I am going to have to work on that.

Following my lesson I went straight to a therapy session, my toe nails are now freshly painted, the massage built into the chair was great, and I caught up on my magazine reading.  Next swimming lesson will be better.  I am glad I didn’t cry and I am glad I didn’t quit, after all the best advice I can give my mom is to keep fighting and that feeling bad for yourself isn’t going to accomplish anything, today I had to live that advice.