hope floats

Speaking of GROANING...

I got invited to do the swim portion of the Morden Triathlon last year and fared quite well, but had an interesting experience, which lead me to believe that I'm perhaps not invincible.
The race organizer announced in the pre-race meeting that the water temperature fell within the range to allow wetsuits, to every one's relief. I, on the other hand, had never practiced swimming with mine, although I came equipped with it. Many people like the suits because of the warmth and the added buoyancy.

The race began and we all politely made our way into the water without fighting for positions. I was swimming along...swim...swim...swim...when suddenly I felt the long large zipper at the back of my suit open, and my suit begin to fill with cold, cold lake water. I began to panic. What happens when a suit gets completely filled? Will I sink? Should I call out for help and get pulled from the water and therefore disqualify myself? What would my relay team members think?
The suit didn't continue to fill and so some of the panic left me. I managed to redo the zipper and compose myself. Just a moment or so later I was back into active stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe mode. After the 2 kilometers of self speak, I came out of the water ahead of perhaps 50% of the pack, and feeling quite pleased with myself for pressing on when panic came, and for finishing well.

It wasn't until some time alone during the 90 minute drive home that I suddenly began to feel fragile. I remembered the feelings of panic I had in the water when I thought I was going to go down. The feelings were foreign. I felt out of control. I thought of my wife and kids. I thought that perhaps my recent decision to rethink my concept of God was ill-timed. I remembered someone once telling me that dying by drowning is a horrible thing but that the moment just before death, there is an experience of euphoria or ecstasy, or some crazy thing like that. Then I thought, well, if that's true, how do they know that's true? Who's the guy they get to do the experiment?

This year I heard rumblings that I will be asked again, which would suit me fine. I just hope that I can remain bouyant after losing all of this winter baggage. Hopefully the day will be another cold one and we can use the wet suits once again.