Drama Llama – Wk 1

It has been a while since I wrote about anything. But now, I have got a reason to record what is going on. So I might try and post weekly about it so that I can see how I am progressing.

I have always be afraid of water. No clue as to why. It might have something to do with my parents trying to dunk my head in the river Ganges when we were on our once in a lifetime trip, or it might have been my friends who tried to drown me in the sea in Bali. Whenever we visit a water park I opt for the looking-after-the-bags duty which will keep me away from the water and the waves. I don’t like water entering my ears. Not one bit. Now I live in a sea side city with beautiful beaches. I love to go and get my feet wet in the sea but that is all I am willing to do. I have had “learn to swim” as my New Year Goal for so many years that I ultimately stopped adding it to my list.

So I decided recently that I will try and get this fear out of my way. It has been going on for way too long. I got myself enrolled in a “adult swimming confidence” lessons, which runs for half an hour every week. I did my first week. Well, at least I am still alive and am here to tell you all about it. So that is a start.

I knew I was afraid of water and I wouldn’t get in the pool, but I didn’t expect that I would be petrified. My instructor asked me to get into the pool first, and I wouldn’t. I was getting terrified more by the minute and was on the verge of getting up and walking away. It didn’t matter that the pool was so shallow that the water was only up to my hip. It took her a lot of effort to convince me that she wouldn’t let me drown and she will be there to hold my hand for me to relax. My first activity was to lie on my back and enjoy the water. Again, I wasn’t gonna let my ears get wet. As a result I wasn’t relaxing and I was panicking to get my leg back into the water. All the while I was holding on to the noodle and there was no chance of going under water. But how would a scared mind know that. After 4 attempts she realised that I wasn’t gonna do it well on my first attempt so she asked me to try and lie of my front and try and kick the water. I tried. I really really tried. I promise. My legs wouldn’t go up. It was happy inside the water touching the ground. But at least I wasn’t panicking about getting my ears wet.

After half an hour of this drama, my legs still wouldn’t stop shaking in-spite of it being inside the water and now that I have stopped doing any manoeuvre. She praised me for trying so hard and that I had got into the water in-spite of my fear and survived 30 mins in it. That is a big plus according to her. I thanked her and was happy that I am getting out of that place.

When I came back home (thanks to Mr M for picking me up after I didn’t want to wait another 20 mins for the next bus) I just wanted to give up and bawl my eyes out. I was so close to losing my shit. I hate that I am so afraid, but also glad a bit that I am doing something about it. If you don’t get any more updates about my swim drama, you know that I have drowned in the shallow pool of water.

What’s with these fire alarms…

On Friday, we had a fire alarm going on in the school just before the school was about to start. Thankfully, not many kids were in the building. The steam from the Kettle in the kitchen was the culprit. Having done the recent Fire Marshal Training and being nominated as one of the Fire Marshals, it wasn’t easy to remember to herd all the kids and not to mention the school dog, through Fire Exits and stand there freezing in the cold until it was all sorted.

On Saturday, we were back home after a quick trip to Central London for shopping and were relaxing watching Taggart when the fire alarm in our apartment went off. What with all the fire incidents that have been going recently, we had to rush out with our essentials (phone, wallet and a jacket) and were waiting and wondering what caused it. Looks like someone smashed the fire alarm box on a floor below us. Thankfully, the fire engines (almost 4 of them) arrived within 5 minutes and checked all the floors and ensured us that nothing was amiss and let us in. We were outside standing in the freezing cold for almost 15 minutes until all was sorted. If only I could get hold of that person who did that. Wonder why they did it. Some thought that it was a prank by some drunk person. It was just 7 pm for god’s sake. I guess we should be happy that it wasn’t 2 am or such. I would be happy to not to hear those alarms for a long time now.

Catty Business

I am not sure if you people know anything about my (mis)adventures with animals, mostly cats. I did a whole rant post. Among all animals that have troubled me, cats rank the first. If you read that post you will understand. They never were happy to see me. Want proof, check this post.  If you see, there is an underlying theme there. They don’t like me and they think they can overtake me and my home. I don’t really care for their liking towards me, because it is sort of mutual, even though I can’t hate any animals, liking is a different matter altogether. But the second one, I do have a say and unless you are a very big animal like Elephant/Lion or something like that, I can overtake and overthrow you from ‘my’ home. Period.

What brought this on? Yesterday while I was locking my front door on my way out, I heard a distinct meow. Wondering if my nightmares are coming true I turned around and saw that there wasn’t any cat nearby. But then the sound kept increasing and in a few seconds, I saw a cat coming down the stairs. I am waiting for the day when they arrive by lifts, but then the lift in my apartment is of the grilled sort. So, unless someone helps them, they can’t.  It came down to my floor. Sat on the floor and started meowing me. I tried to ask the cat, if it wanted anything and why is it even in this apartment. It started to meow a little forcefully and strongly as if it was annoyed that I didn’t get what it said. It felt for that minute that the cat was really trying to tell me something and then started to scold me because I wasn’t getting a single word of what it was saying. Thankfully my watchman, who was on his way down, chased the cat away. Not before it turned and gave me ‘that’ look. Why? I thought I was done with them. Not again, man. Not again.

Broken

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Letting go

The context of this post is something I started last week, but never got around to completing it. It was also a reason for my yoga based post for yesterday’s SoCS prompt. I have never been good at meditation. I have come close to calming down a couple of times, but have realized that I can never completely empty my mind. I dread to think what will happen if that ever happens 🙂 The reason being that I cannot let go. I am not a control freak even though I expect a little discipline in things I am involved in. But other than that I have become a little chilled out (than what I was much earlier) thanks to the mellowness that comes with age (or rather the acceptance that I cannot change or control everything in life). My thoughts travel so fast in all directions and I can think of too many things that I switch between context’s even before I can complete one train of thought. My friends know how I speak out of context suddenly (that happened today too) without any preamble and then I have to trace back to the actual point of the switch of my thoughts. Letting go of the thoughts or emotions and to go with the flow is something I am not good at all. I have never been and I am not sure how I will fair in my older age. While talking about it to my friend today on the way back from our brunch (photos will come later), I realized that more than letting go I am afraid that I would have to restart and trust me I have done my share of restarts in life and it is not that easy. But then life never is.

OK, that got a little too deep and emotional. Lets move on. I realized while writing the post, that I know of 4 different songs titled “Let * go ”  with 4 different contexts, even though at the end it all boils down this

Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go. – Herman Hesse