Choices, ends, beginnings and finding yourself single at 46

Imagine being on your deathbed and being shown two films. One is the life you had and the other is the life you could have had. How would you feel? Much of what holds us back from the second one is nothing more than the choices we make in a few moments.

The moments we remember the most are the end and the beginnings of things, the choice is sometimes deciding which one it is.

When I was a teenager, there came a time I realised it was time to stop swimming to win and begin just enjoying it. Yet for months I carried on. I was too afraid of what would come after, of the end.

I don't know how secondary school was for you but it was okay for me. There were the usual bullies and anxieties, however it wasn't normal because I was living some sort of double life. Pupil by day and swimmer by night (and very, very early mornings).

When you go through a crisis with people, it brings you closer together and swimming competitively is sustained crisis. The shared pain and suffering, the traveling without your parents, the pressure to win. It bonds you. 

I connected much more with other swimmers than other pupils. My best friends were swimmers, my teenage girlfriends were swimmers. I wasn't good at football but killed it in the pool.

School was the bit I drifted through, waiting to put on the wet costume again, to become someone who wasn't quite like everyone else.

I was afraid of that ending, of my life as I knew it. I couldn't  see how I could begin a life without it. I wanted it to end, I didn't want it to end because I didn't have the courage to start again. 

Sometimes hating your current situation feels safer than the fear of letting go.

That end of course, was nothing of the sort.

I found a deep love for tennis and deeper connections with the friends I already had, many of whom are still my best friends. I've know my very best friend since I was four, I love him, you can't replace that tapestry of shared experience.

(Incidentally, I carried on swimming in a smaller way and raced at university  but it took a long time to get used to my body not being able to do what it once could. Golfers and tennis players can still wow the crowds with their skills for years, but in sports based purely in conditioning, the speed you lose it is light speed fast).

This is why so many people stay in bad jobs longer than they should, or bad relationships. It's easier than the fear of the unknown.

So I'm now 46, at a turning point bigger than the swimming thing. It feels like it's half-time. No matter how I look at it, half my life is done.

But half of it is yet to come and very unknown, because this year I became single again. 

It was up to me to view this as the final chapter or a brand new book.

Naturally there were remnants if that boy clinging on to what no longer worked, rather than embracing the new. Not now.

Of course, some things don't change. My love and devotion to my amazing children (which itself shows nothing is fixed as, even in my early 30s I fully believed I didn't want kids). Then again, you ask yourself what example you set for them, because that's how they learn. Not from what you tell them, they become the things you show them. 

There are things inside me I knew were there, never given a proper, full-throated voice (natural in a way as I've been told I'm far too quietly spoken).

As someone told me recently, cycling is something I enjoy but swimming is something I need (Sometimes I need someone to tell me what I think). Re-discovering the embrace of the water feels like coming home, it puts me in touch with a me that isn't a Dad, an ex-husband, strategist, clumsy fool or middling writer. It's me.

Still, I never thought I'd develop a minor obsession about swimming in lakes, which is what appears to be happening, yet it makes sense as, given the choice, I'd prefer to be outside. 

I knew I wanted to write again. but never made the time. I'm still not sure what I really want to write about, but the only way to find out is, well, start writing. 

There are emerging themes I've mentioned elsewhere. 

Yet other parts of me I never realised existed.

The part of me that wants to tell the unvarnished truth, in the hope others who can't express what they are feeling may be encouraged to do so too. Much of what is happening to me is new, I'll plunge straight in, I'll get much of it wrong, I might be confused sometimes, but aren't we all really?

The part of me dabbling in online dating and finding many of the things I thought I wanted from others were nothing of the sort. Perhaps more surprising, yet maybe it shouldn't be, are the things others bring out of you. 

The me that realised I have a lot more to offer than I ever thought and the more I find what that is, the more I'll have to show those children of mine. Hopefully, one day, there will only be one video we watch together when the second half is over too. 

 

Comments

[John]

Wise words. As someone who has not come close to following them, I can say that with certainty. Hope you find the future you want. Onwards.

[Northern]

Thanks John
All is well

[Rob]

This is an amazing post. Honest, vulnerable and gently written.

While we think we know how life will turn out, none of us do and it’s as much about how you go into it that determines what comes out. The way you’ve written this makes me believe that whether it’s a new chapter or a new book, it will be rewarding.