Swimming in Treacle and Healing Hugs

Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th were always planned to be the last all girl swim before the channel neap tides began 23rd September, we put them in the calendar one afternoon early 2012 when we were all together building our training plans, it should have been the most fun weekend, all the hard work done and being fully ready for our swim.

After an exhausting week sitting vigil with my very sick father I said my goodbyes and headed down to his brothers in Sandbanks Poole to meet the girls for a swim saturday afternoon and a few hours on Sunday. Saturday was beautiful, the swimming was simple and cleansing, and the warmth of the late afternoon sun was a perfect balsam to a tired soul.

Sadly at 3am my twin called and broke the news that Dad had passed away, and amidst tears and whispered conversation i confess to feeling both huge sadness and huge relief - he lasted 9 days in palliative care with no food or fluid, he was made of stern stuff it appears, and at last was resting in peace. One upside was that it meant I could tell his brother face to face, small comfort for us both, but the connection to Dad in that hug was very special, something about serendipity there...

As usual, I paid scant regard to my emotional reaction, my rational self telling me that it was a blessing for him, crying a little but then ‘cracking on’ as he would have wanted. The day was grey and cool, but the sea was beautiful and calm, and the first hour was pleasurable with some extra drills in place to practice changing the pace up and down, something I am crap at. As we waited for Niki to arrive after a friends wedding, we did gymnastics and olympic long jump on the beach, giggling like 5 year olds, but anything to keep warm!

So you can see a picture of normality! Well, as normal as 3 grown women wearing multiple layers of towels, dressing gowns and hoodies can look on a deserted beach pretending to be olympic athletes. Pictures to prove it...

So, Why the title ‘swimming in treacle’?

The sea is always warmer the second time you go in, don’t know why, mental game I think. We were all smiling at the fact that at last the 4 of us were swimming side by side again, and the reality of being only 1 week away from the start of our swim was just brilliant. We swim at different paces, well, Moralee basically beats the rest of us hands down while we all try and keep up. We swam for 30 minutes down the coast, when the tide is gentle it means less need to swim back and forth - one of the brighton swims was 25 minutes in one direction and only 7 in the other for the same distance. It was about that point i noticed that my fluidity had escaped me, having learnt to swim from scratch, my muscle memory is pretty good, but I felt tired, in pain, and decidedly lumpy... in fact, on reflection, decidedly soggy.

Despite trying to be brave, keep going, and push them down, tears were trying to force themselves up. On land that isn’t a problem (although driving while crying is hard I have found), but when your face is buried in water, and your eyes are in goggles, the feeling was one of suffocation, and the harder I tried to stop them the slower my body went, my emotions being buried meant my body was somehow playing out the feeling, the slow, sad, weariness of the previous 3 weeks, and the sleepless previous night, and I was getting refusal. I hadn’t associated grief with the impact of shock. Even 4 days later as I write this, I am exhausted, trying not to worry about training, but just getting mentally fit for next week instead.

Anyway, how did it end? I swam slowly until I got into the buoy swimming area, where I could stand up, and then with the gentle waves, cool breeze and nature all around me I wept. I cried hard, those wonderful loud gulping noises we make when we no longer care what people think, sobs wracking me and salty tears joining the salty sea all around me. Bloody hell nature is amazing at helping us heal in that way. Niki, Bridget and Moralee swam to me, and gave me the most precious gift - they held me, all three of them hugging me, wrapped around me whispering, and encouraging me to let it go. I apologise unreservedly to them for the snotfest (to use my twins word), but not for the tears, and thank them from the heart of my bottom for just ‘being’ with me in that moment.

If you ever want to test the human spirit, just let your friends in. If you ever want to make new deep forever friends, take on a challenge with them. Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, its about learning to Dance in the Rain. The Channel swim has become a metaphor, alongside the passing of my wonderful dad, for living life to the full, for all those people who realise today is for now, go large or go home! If you want to sponsor me.... WWW.Justgiving.com/Nikki-Watkins-Seabreezers