~upon letting whatever happens this day be for the "good"~

Good morning to you friends and family from us here along the Western Slopes.  Happy June 20th to you all, the day before the official summer solstice.  If you ever wanted to enjoy a day filled with the most daylight possible, well folks get ready to enjoy it tomorrow.  Within a week or more, the calendar will turn to July and we will all sit back and wonder, "where in the heck did June go anyway?"  Life goes on and on as time flies faster seemingly each day with little regard to how people feel about it.  When we are young and waiting to grow up and be on our own, it drags as slow as a bike with a flat tire.  Yet when you get to be my age of "looking 59 square in the eyes" you sometimes want to apply the brakes and say "Whoa! Enough of the hurrying to the end.  I'll find the finish line quick enough as it is."

Come this October, I will celebrate another year of life and living.  It does seem strange to think of soon being the age of 59.  My father died at that age after living through and dying from a very brief and pain filled 18-month bout of lung cancer.   I was only 27 when he passed away and as I look back on it now, I think I was looking at my father as being pretty old.  Now that I have caught up to his age, I realize just how young he really was :)  I surely do miss that guy.

Sometimes I like to look back at where I have come from as I read through blog posts that I have made before during the nearly 4 year period of time that I've been journaling online.  I laugh at some of the things I've written about and from time to time find my eyes tearing up as I read some of the others.  To be honest, there are a few posts that I've completely forgotten about making for one reason or another so it's like reading it for the first time.  Not sure what that says of my memory but I don't worry about it.  I guess it's a good thing that I wrote it down to begin with because I dang sure wouldn't have recalled it if I hadn't.  Writing allows me to document the struggles as well as the good moments, the real blessings of my existence here on earth. 

I found one of my very earliest of posts from the 22nd day of June in 2011, one made as I was beginning to work on a bucket list idea of learning how to swim well enough to save my own life one day.  I was a 55 year old woman with a lifelong fear of getting into water that came anywhere above my ankles and since I'm a short woman to begin with, well you see how pathetic that fear was.  A very good friend back home in Kansas had told me that I needed to get over that idea of water phobia and take adult swimming lessons.  I listened to him and did just that but it wasn't easy.  The blog post reprinted below tells of my thoughts just 24 hours prior to re-entering the water for the first time since I was a very little kid.  I laugh at it now as I read it and smile to think that I was even able to do it in the first place.  It is printed below, if you would so care to read it. 

Time to get this good day going and enjoy every minute that I can in the daylight hours that will follow.  Take care of yourselves out there and enjoy this wonderful season of summertime.  It's Friday and a great day to be alive in.  We were meant to be here, you and I.  Make everything of it that you can and don't waste one minute of the time allotted to you.  Whatever happens today, let it be for the "good".

A Blog Post from 3 years back
June 22, 2011~"Getting Closer"

 
     "Well, it's now Wednesday evening and less than 48 hours before swimming lesson number 1 begins.  I thought by now I might be feeling REALLY scared about doing it.....maybe even thinking about excuses I could think up so I wouldn't have to go.  You know, something like, "Laurie, I hate to have to cancel my first lesson but ___________(fill in the blank with some lame-brain excuse).    Call it "denial" if you wish, but for now I have just kind of come to peace with the fact that I'm going down to the YMCA on Friday morning and try to learn to swim.  

    
     You've heard it said that "too much knowledge" isn't always a good thing?  I think that saying may well have come about when someone, just like me, spent hours on the internet trying to find the solution to getting over their fear of swimming.  And the end result was that they were even more confused and frightened than they were before hand.  I spent a lot of time "googling" phrases like, "fear of swimming" and "afraid of the water."  Most of the places that  I found were of little use to me.

    
    There was a site, however, that was pretty plain and to the point.  It offered 5 things to consider prior to heading to the very first swimming lesson.  I found it to be actually quite helpful instead of making things seem much worse.  Their thoughts:
 

1.  pinpoint your fear-Why are you so afraid of learning to swim?
Easy for me to answer that one...Thought I was going to drown on day #1 of swim lessons at age ten.  Never seemed to get over that dreadful event.

2.  positive self-talk-What good things can come from learning to swim?  Well, I'm trying to learn so I can swim well enough to save my own life sometime.  That should count for something.  And, since a very qualified swim instructor is helping me, I shouldn't be worrying about anything further.

3.  set goals-What do I want to do?  Hey, that's simple....I want to show up at each of the 4 lessons that I have already paid for, get into the pool, pay attention to the instructor, and learn.  In other words, I prefer to not "chicken out."

4.  get a qualified teacher-Already did that...Laurie is the best choice for me.  

5.  go slow-Is there any other way?   

     When I slide into that pool on Friday, it will be the first time that I've gotten into a swimming pool since 1965....seriously.....46 years ago.  Oh I've dangled my feet into the very shallow end of swimming pools since then...but dangling is the extent of it.  I don't expect to be a champion swimmer at the end of the 4th and final lesson.  If I am lucky, I'll learn to at least float on my back without getting scared that I will sink and drown.  

     In the days since I decided to give swimming a try, I have run into a handful of adults who, just like me, have never learned to swim.  This afternoon I ran into a friend who discreetly took me aside and whispered in my ear..."Don't feel bad Peggy.  I never learned to do it either." 

   
     Hey, I didn't mention it but I found lots of sites directed at only adults who wanted to learn to swim.  Didn't seem to matter your gender, age, where you lived, how much money you made. If you truly wanted to learn how to swim, there was a program out there to teach you. 

   
     One such school for adult non-swimmers boasted "Learn how to swim like an Olympian in only 6 days!"  They guaranteed that claim with the quote, "Over  30,000 satisfied adults world wide."  When they said  "world wide", they meant it.  Their swimming schools were in Bahrain and Phoenix, Arizona. 

   
     Nah, I think I'll still just trot the half-mile over to the YMCA and give Laurie a chance to teach me.

 Standing alongside the very best swim teacher that there ever was at the Hutchinson YMCA, summer of 2011 just a couple of weeks before my bicycling accident.  Good thing I got those swimming lessons done when I did.  I'm thinking that my long arm, neon pink cast would not have fared to well in a water-filled swimming pool.