Kerkpolder, Delft, 3000m

Do I want to be there at 7? I just can’t imagine getting up at quarter past six. Again.
Saturday saw an early start. So did Sunday. Monday, I blocked from my mind. Oh right, I woke up feeling thoroughly nauseous. Not from the wine I had the night before. This was different. It had reminded me of the terribly unaptly named morning sickness I suffered from during my pregnancies 24 hours a day. Crap, what if? A quick Google search informs me that nausea can indeed be one of the symptoms of perimenopause. It had felt hormonal, and I conclude it probably was.

Anyway, it’s Tuesday now and I snooze my 06:45 alarm twice. Not doing 7 had been the conclusion. It turns out I wasn’t going to be doing 07:30 either.

Rusty slowly eats his way through the kibble he had skilfully pawed out of his crate the night before in a silent protest against the unfairness of not being allowed to sleep on the bed. “Would you hurry up?” I think. I know it’s pointless. Trying to hurry him will only have the adverse effect, and he still needs to do his business in the garden before I leave. I can’t stand the thought of him not having had an opportunity to relieve himself before I leave for the pool.
After what feels like 10 minutes but is probably closer to 5, he sticks his head out the door. Rain. Without even as little as a pause, he turns around and walks into the hallway.
No potty then. I could have spared myself the trouble and the time.

I leave him on the stairs with my usual “I’m going swimming. I’ll be right back”. He stares back at me for a short moment and trots off. No doubt to take up his favorite spot on the couch.

At the pool, I chat with Angela, one of my favorite life-guards-cum-fellow-swimmers. I know I’m stalling, but I’ve missed my “Lane 1”- people as I call them, and I am so chuffed to be in my pool again after months away. As I chat with Angela, I check out my lane and realize I know almost no one other than yellow shark (Mark will forever be his second name), and Sylvan. No, that’s not right, or is it? I had made such an effort to learn his name, and now it eludes me completely. I count 6 people.

When I finally feel the water, less cold than I remember, close over my head as I jump in, I’m still not convinced this will be a good swim, but I’m in now and there’s nothing else for it but to push off the wall.
On the return lap, I see Marcel approach the edge of the pool. I can’t wait to talk with him. He’s been going through some major life events, and though he’s sent me the bullet points via WhatsApp, I’ve missed speaking face to face.

Finish your warm-up laps, and then you can chat, I tell myself, and I do. I’m so not feeling it. Of late, all my practices seem to have this common thread of negativity running through them.
Just stick with it, I tell myself. “It’ll come”, I chant, it being that feeling of flow. That feeling that you could swim into infinity. One-Jan’s one-off comment all those months ago (Or has it even been a year already?) has become my mantra on those days that I seem to be swimming through molasses, unable to find the motivation to pick up the pace.

It’s not been fifty meters of my chanting my mantra, and who should show up but One-Jan himself. I high-five him, happy to see my down-to-earth swim buddy. I tell him I’m waiting for “it” to come to me. He asks me how long I’ve been at it already today, on my quest to find swimming motivation. When I glance at my watch, it’s been half an hour.
“Well, it better come soon or it might not show up at all today”. It makes me laugh, if only a little.

Marcel pulls up side by side a little later and tells me: “Let me go in front…”. It’s a Godsend. I glue myself to his heels, tune out, and know I won’t stop until he does.

Now and then, I zone out so much that I don’t realize how close I have come and touch his feet, a big no-no in swimming unless intending to pass. Well, and unless it’s One-Jan and me drafting off each other. We sometimes even pull each other’s ankles. Our special way of bantering without words. It’s as if we’re saying: “That all you got?”.

I back off again. A mistake, because Marcel takes my tap as a hint to up the speed a bit. No, that’s not all he’s got, he’s saying. Damn’, okay, let’s go.
After about 900 meters of this or so, I feel so much better. Swimming with mates is simply a cut above.

I might as well go for 3k then, the distance I am supposed to swim across the Haringvliet on Saturday. I leave the pool feeling okay-ish, but not great. I’m still worried. Is this dread I feel every time a swim is on the calendar here to stay, or will joy find its way back?
I will simply have to trust in One-Jan’s mantra that: It’ll come. And if it doesn’t, then I have my friends to show me the way. I’ll gladly let them go in front, give chase, and try to touch their feet or grab their ankles.

Because is this all I got? Nah, I probably have more.

Alright, let’s go swimming this morning.

I just want to move my body. I feel put off by the prospect of a grueling training schedule and when I check I see my coach hasn’t put one online anyway.

I make the executive decision that I will simply go and enjoy the water. Immediately I feel light and happy and ready to go.

As I make my way poolside, Marc falls into step next to me. Good timing.

Only one other person in lane one. Our lane. We’ve claimed it. Well, the others claimed it. Those with more pool seniority. I joined last year. They let me stay. Now it’s mine too.

Before I have even donned my bathing cap, goggles, and nose clip, Marc has already done 2 laps.

The only thing I dread no matter how buoyant I feel is jumping into the pool. Maybe that’s why I have developed this poolside getting-ready-ritual. So I can postpone the moment the cool water surrounds me, signaling that it’s time to finally get crackelacking. 

Or maybe I am overthinking it and it’s simply because I have long hair and an intolerance to the chemicals used in the pool, necessitating the use of additional utensils.

Marc swims without a cap or clip. Goggles and go. Hmmm, that could be a good slogan.

Normally my 500-meter warm-up is a set set, pun intended. 200 meters of leisurely freestyle, before switching over to kick drills. Today I decide I want more than 200 meters of freestyle bliss before picking up my pink-green-and-white pullbuoy. I am loving the water. 

I throw in some technique work. Pay attention to your pull. Keep that elbow high. Push out all the way to the end. Don’t lock up. Elbow leads recovery.

Okay, let’s don that happy peppy pink-colored snorkel and do some sculling. Just focus on feeling the water. 

Figure eights is what they tell you to imagine. After all these years I still don’t get what that is supposed to look like. Does each hand trace a figure eight individually or do both hands combine to form the eight? 

If it’s both hands together, then I want to talk the teacher or whoever invented that, because if I do what I think I am supposed to do then I’m not drawing imaginary underwater eights. 

No sirree, I would be drawing an infinity symbol.

An infinity symbol looks significantly different from a figure 8.

The saying suggests to call a spade a spade. So let’s call an infinity symbol an infinity symbol, okay?

My engineer brain needs us to be precise here.

Marc notices I don’t have a workout plan printed. Nope, I tell him, I decided I don’t have to do anything today. I simply want to enjoy my swimming.

Ah comes the reply, you’re detoxing from “have-to”-ing as well.

Definitely, I tell him. I figure that as a mindset coach I have to lead by example.

His eyes light up and as he starts to respond, I already know what he is going to say. I have just answered with I have to. 

Not true. I don’t have to. I choose to. Lead by example.

The Dutch verb for have to or must is “moeten”. Must and moeten are etymologic relatives.

To express that you’re stepping away from everything  “must” or “have to”, you could add the prefix “ont”. Language allows for that kind of creativity. Same as in English.

Comfortable, uncomfortable.

Common, uncommon.

Do, undo.

Haste, unhaste.

In Dutch:

Moeten, ont-moeten.

Ontmoeten means to meet, to encounter, to confront.

Moeten and ontmoeten. Must and meet. These words don’t share a linguistic history, but they should.

When you stop have-to-ing, you start meeting yourself. 

By a happy coincidence, the Dutch language got it right.

If I stop telling myself that I have to, then do I choose to? And then what would I want? What is it I love? What do I need?

Hello self, nice to meet you. Leuk je te ontmoeten.

I call it a day after “only” 1500m. When I arrive home, I check my lap times. I averaged 2’02” over the first 350m. Wait, what? That’s my endurance pace. It’s a pace I normally have to work at to sustain.

I swam that pace while being relaxed and loving every second. No conditions. No effort. No have-tos.

Wow. Well, helloooo. Nice to meet you. Leuk je te ontmoeten.