I'm a Swinger

Over the past several years, my body has changed.

With the diagnosis of autoimmune disease, that's not earth-shattering news. And then there's the whole aging thing. Bleah. Let's not go there today.

So aside from all the wah wah wah symptoms that I've talked about over the last few years, there's one that's been sneaking up on me over time. Or at least, it's taken me several years to acknowledge what it is.

My body feels slower, sluggish, older. Autoimmune fatigue, among other unidentified things, has caused me to lose that bounce in my step that I used to take for granted. My body doesn't skip. It can't trot, or jog, or jitterbug. If I tried, I'd end up gasping for breath, slimy with sweat, and and regretting that I even tried. I feel a heaviness that has nothing to do with numbers on a scale.

But I've also come to realize that there's a few places where I can kick off those cement boots that seem to have been glued to my feet.

When I wade into a swimming pool and sink into the water, I finally feel....light. Floaty. As if I could go anywhere or do anything. I just lay my head back on the surface of the water and just effortlessly drift. It's a great place, and a wonderful way to feel almost as weightless as I do in all my dreams in which I just stretch my arms up to the sky and glide away with the wind.

Ah, but there's other ways for me to find that flying sensation in other places than a chlorinated pool.

I've become a swinger - yep. I have found that when I plop myself into my wonderful hammock swing I can capture that same floaty, effortless, gliding feeling. I could - and do - spend hours there, just swinging and gliding and gently bouncing with the wind. I love it so much that, in fact, I have two swings now. John attached my other, newer swing onto a branch of our flowering plum tree. This swing needs no spring like my hammock, but the natural sway of the sturdy branch to which it's securely tied provides all the glide and float that I could ever want.

In the shade of my favorite tree, in my own little patch of green living things. What a place to re-discover my freedom.