So I just swam my first mile in two years. While my mom was dying, before I ran my first competitive marathon time, I had a badly sprained ankle from soccer and was confined to swimming and biking.... I actually got recruited to be a spinning teacher because I'm so dang perky and excited at six in the morning. Strange... I know.... I was excited to do my first triathalon, but then I found out that I was really good at running. So decided to put my 100% into running. And then I decided that I could make the Olympic team trials for Brazil and swimming and biking suddenly seemed bleak. But then 2 weeks ago, I got injured, and I still can't walk down stairs without excruciating pain in my left knee.
So today I joined the YMCA and I swam my first mile, not using my left leg because it hurts to kick. With about 500m left to go a fat bald man got in next to me and passed me doing freestyle while I was doing backstroke. So I decided to race him. It was so much fun because we were both pretty pitiful and slow and he didn't know I was waiting for him to finish so I could race him for another 50m. And neither of us could do flip turns, so there were a lot of pauses.
But I left feeling like a hero because I was back to the mindset I had when I was taking care of my mom. My hero mindset, where I am my own hero. Where I can go swimming in the morning, work a full day, go home and be with/take care of/read to my mom, and get up and do it all over again. Where nothing could stop me, not my anger with the world that would mercilessly destroy my idol (my mother), and not an ankle that I couldn't really walk on.
So I left and thought of one of my old goals in life: to never have to drink my own urine. I made that a goal when I was 9 or 10 and read about a man who got trapped under his house during an earthquake in India. He drank his own urine to stay alive. My goal made me never want to live in California, or anywhere near a fault line (it may seem ridiculous, but the desire to not drink my own urine was actually a factor in me turning down some california colleges to which I was accepted). Recently this goal has been modified to never having to drink my own urine or my own diarrhea to stay alive. One of my professors mentioned how in third world countries if someone has a bad bout of cholera, you can feed them their own diarrhea to give them to fluid and electrolytes necessary to keep them alive through the bout of diarrhea**.
I realized today what it means that the goal of never drinking my own urine has influenced my life decisions... It means that if necessary to stay alive (i.e. if I were in that situation), I would drink my own urine (and maybe diarrhea). That I am strong enough that I will do almost what is necessary to survive and thrive and be the best that I can be. Fortunately, in my life that has meant joining a swimming pool at 26 years old because I sprained my ankle and can't walk. Hence, I know that my knee injury will help me become as strong as I was became when I hurt my ankle and within months became an elite runner. This injury will help me become as strong as I was when I had to be strong for my mother and figure out a way to get her to smile even when she was crying. Because she could die at any second if her tumor felt like making that her last.
** Note that I will never endorse Urine Therapy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine_Therapy
This is NOT endorsed by the medical establishment. But if someone wants to get back to me on what spreading urea on their skin does to help prevent wrinkles or help get rid of their hemorrhoids, I am ALL EARS! Though I may giggle a little while listening.
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