Swimming Toward the Shore

There's an analogy I use re: getting through difficult times.

Picture yourself far out in the ocean. The waves are ginormously huge and they pull you under and toss you for loops. Just when you think you're going to drown, there's a moment's break in the turmoil and you swim like mad toward the shore. You get a little distance, then the waves build again, pulling you under once more. You have moments when you just let the violence carry you under, but those little moments of resurfacing keep coming, and each time, you swim a little further toward the shore. Eventually, you arrive on land: exhausted, spent, tattered and worn. But you're there! You made it. Despite the waves tossing and pulling you repeatedly along the way, you survived the turbulent journey.

I am on shore. I may be draped in seaweed, but I have arrived. I'm a different person. Not sure yet if that's good or not, but like the Chinese leader of that cult I hung out with for year always used to say: "Not good, not bad. Just IS."

And here. I. Am.