I have suddenly discovered what fear is and it’s certainly not pretty. I’ve faced it a few times in my life and I’ve ignored it, haven’t realised it or just plain looked it in the eye.
At 10 years old or there about, I took my bicycle across a railway line over a gorge except that the bridge had gone years before and all that survived was the two iron lines…… Got into trouble for that one.
In the early 80s I sailed through the tail end of a cyclone in a 40000ton ship and can remember watching the angle of the roll which touched on 45 degrees…. A consignment of coke bottles was reduced to pretty much nothing.
Mid 80s I was in a helicopter a few hundred meters up when we lost some critical hydraulics…… We used the Mormon church garden as an emergency landing pad.
Late 80s I was scuba diving and just happened to come face to face with a ragged tooth shark…
Been there, done that and I earned my T-shirt.
Miriam took me up the road to another home which has a heated pool. She wanted to get me in water to exercise my limbs and see how I walked in water.
We’ll laugh the walking off. It just doesn’t happen, I manage better on crutches which also doesn’t happen as it’s so tiring.
So it was just exercise mode. Last time I was in a pool I was like a block of wood, stiff and unyielding. This time, pretty much the same but it was difficult to float. Then Miriam held my legs up so I could at least look like I was floating.
Miriam started to manipulate my legs and my centre of gravity shifted and my head went under……
I do not have full use of arms or legs and I couldn’t get my head back up above the water and I started to panic and I took in water. Not a pretty sight.
Throwing my T-shirt away and I don’t know if I’m going to get back in the pool...
Shawn, I love reading your accounts of life in Switzerland. Despite Miss Sneaky, you seem to have made a good life for yourself.
ReplyDeleteFear comes at us in all sorts of ways. I fell in the bathroom the other day. Quick check, no harm done, then I realised that as I can feel virtually nothing below the waist, no pain may not equal no injury.
I paniced. All sorts of scenarios ran through my head. I had my mobile to call for help, but hanging from the hook on the bathroom door.
Eventually I calmed and did the visual and manual check. Yep, all ok except a few bruises and hurt pride.
So hard to explain to someone that you are in a scary place, and the worst bit is that you can't get yourself out.
Do they do a t-shirt for that?
Hey Midge, you get the T-shirt just for being you. You can't get better than that.
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