Exhaustion and Bubbles

There has been much weighing on my mind recently.  Not the least of which is how over-worked and under-rested I am at this particular moment. I am regretting my decision to work 60+ hours/week this summer. 

I love my coaching job with (almost) all of my being.  I love the kids, and my fellow coaches.  It has been a joy and an honor to work with such a great staff and (for the most part) great team this summer, and to get to do something I love (and get paid for it!).  My office job, on the other hand, has progressively become more and more challenging.  I am discovering very quickly that God's provision is not always what my provision would have been.  It has certainly been a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow, but a challenging, difficult, and rarely enjoyable one.  The frustration from one job, the time consumption of another, the excessive hours and little sleep finally caught up to me last week.  I couldn't move.  I didn't want to move.  I haven't been that tired since high school (which, for those of you who know me, is quite a significant statement).   To put it in perspective, I called in to work on Wednesday morning, which put me at 9 hours of sleep, Thursday through Saturday nights I averaged about 7 hours of sleep per night.  I then slept for 17 (yes, you read that right.... 17) hours yesterday, and am just now beginning to feel like a functional human being again. 

In all of this exhaustion and frustration, I have found some undesirable and unpleasant emotions bubbling up and rising to the surface.  My irritability, for one.  Anger, for another.  More anger than I'd like to admit.  While there are many, many issues which were thought-resolved-but-aren't I have discovered in the past few weeks, there is one in particular that irks me more than the rest.  That is the issue of men. 

I have never felt the need to date simply for the sake of dating.  I'm quite comfortable being single (actually, significant and complete commitment to one man still freaks me out a little bit...), and I rather enjoy the freedom it allows me.  But I am human, and there are moments when I panic, think I'm going to die alone and single, having never had a significant relationship in my life.  I went on a few dates in High School (very few... and rarely was there more than 2 with the same guy), but never really clicked with anyone.  It wasn't until my senior year that I had any real relationship of any sort. 

I'm not entirely sure how to approach this topic gracefully or tactfully.  In fact, I'm not sure there is a way... I don't like bad-mouthing people, and I try very hard to avoid anything of the sort.  But I think this is one of the ways in which well-meaning women (and, although less often, men) can be used as a doormat; when women (or men) are afraid to stand up and say to the world that someone has hurt them in a significant way, simply because they don't want to hurt anyone, they damage themselves and let others get away with it.  So I suppose it's time I came out and admitted that the last guy I dated really, really messed with me.  So much so that I haven't been on a single date since him, not out of disinterest but, in part, out of genuine fear and incredible hurt. 

The sad thing is not that our relationship was the problem (although it was problematic...), but it was our post-dating relationship which really did the damage.  It does not matter how - that is a private matter - but the problem is that because I fancy myself a kind, drama-free, honest person, I allowed myself to be manipulated and used in ways I didn't know was possible.  And the end result cost me not just his friendship, but every single one of our mutual friends as well.  At a time when my life was falling apart right in front of me, he nearly single-handedly destroyed all precious people and relationships in my life, and left me with only ashes of what I used to know. 

And wouldn't it be poetic and wonderful and inspiring if I could conclude now with imagery of a phoenix rising from the ashes, of a person remade and all the more beautiful and empowered because of it?  But that's not how this ends.  I'm still in the ashes stage (yes, even now, 2 1/2 years later...).  I'm trying to get over the anger (and how deep it runs), to forgive, but it's not as easy as it sounds (even as petty as this fight was).  I'm still working to let go, to learn to trust men again, and to try to figure all this out.  I'm trying to figure out my identity as a woman, how empowerment and feminism plays into my role (if at all) as a woman of Christ, how my standards for men in general (and, hopefully, my future husband) need to change, and how I need to change if I am to become the person God has called me to be.  I'm learning a lot, about myself and about others.  But it really just sucks some days.

Observations from a Pool Deck: Part 2

There are other, less comical and more serious observations that I've made, too.

Like the Dad who absolutely scared the shit out of me the other day. I've never honestly been that fearful of someone before. He was clean shaven. Wore nice clothes. Had no tattoos, no piercings. He wasn't even physically that intimidating (although not out of shape, either). But when I saw him playing with his children and step children.... I saw the makings of an abusive home. Perhaps I am being judgmental. But I just got this feeling... I've never felt that way before, about anyone.

The only other family who was in the pool was a dad, who had enough tattoos to be an art gallery, at least 3 piercings, wore his ratty jeans and old basketball shoes to the pool, cursed like a sailor, and was big enough to be a linebacker. But he had a gentle demeanor to him. I saw him playing with his kids in an entirely different manner, under an entirely different pretext. It was clear to me that while on the outside he may have been a rough, "bad boy", he genuinely loved his kids. He played what they wanted to play, watched them carefully, disciplined them gently, and was there to simply be a part of his kids lives, to enjoy their company.

The first dad, however, disciplined his children by holding them underwater for just a moment less than too long. Ignoring his 1-year-old who could barely walk, who I pulled out of the water at least 3 times when he found that he couldn't walk as the water got deeper. His wife (girlfriend? I'm pretty sure it was his wife, though I didn't look for rings) stayed quite clear of him, watching not with admiration or love or pride or infatuation or even lust, but with fear and anger and a general sense that she was terrified of him in the most savage and rawly humane way possible. And the icy glare he gave me when I gently reminded his kids that they were actually not allowed to stand on the peninsula we've got, and asked them to get off.... Made me shiver. Literally. Nobody's ever had that power over me. I had a minuscule glimpse into what it must be like to live under a terror regime - either by the government, an abusive relationship, or anything else that genuinely instills that kind of intense fear in people.

******

Or, the second terrifyingly real experience I had involves the dad, who, at first glance was just one of those slightly weird men with a little extra hair on his back with a little bit of a beer belly, and balding, greying hair.... who for some reason felt the need to wear one of those speedoes that should be outlawed unless your name is Michael Phelps or Jason Lezak.... At first I just thought he was a little odd. But then things got interesting. (Background: We've got a "shore" area - part of the pool that starts at 0" depth and gradually goes to 2' deep. In the shallowest part, we've got a set of 6 fountains that spew water for kids to play in.) The dad spent the better portion of fifteen minutes standing directly over the tallest fountain discreetly fondling himself. And by discreetly I mean the way one would go about said activity when they consciously know they are in public, and really shouldn't be touching themselves, but they do it anyways.... Not really particularly discreet, as far as subtlety goes.

As if that weren't disturbing enough, the young boy he was with (his son, who couldn't have ben older than 5 or 6), walked up to his dad and, through the Speedo, sucked his dad's dick. No, I am not hallucinating, nor exaggerating. The father, as if in a moment of delusion and forgetfulness about where he was and who might be watching, patted the young child on the head and said "good boy".

What does it mean for me to watch that? And then proceed to take no action? I am not a mandatory reporter, and so am under no additional legal obligation to reveal anything I may know about potentially dangerous situations. And even if I were, I would have no means of passively or secretly identifying the man.

I'm not under any delusion that sexual abuse does not exist, even here in perfect trophy-wife/soccer-mom white suburbia; I've known people who have been abused, both sexually and otherwise. But always, always it was a private act. While I'm sure the young boy did not know or understand that such actions are not acceptable, in public or otherwise, the father (one would think) would have either the sensitivity or the decency to stop the young boy before things went so far in public.

The image has haunted me since it happened - knowing that I did nothing. Knowing that I let the situation go, ignored it, simply pretended that it had not happened.... But it did! It happened, right in front of me!!! And I neglected it.... which, in a sense makes me just as guilty as the father.... But what should I have done? The thought has been tormenting me, haunting my heart - what WOULD have been the best course of action?! How does one react appropriately in that situation???? I cannot, no matter how many times I replay the situation in my head, come up with a good solution, an answer or action that would be justifiable, that would be good for the boy, that would be appropriate.... It is a weight that has borne down upon my soul since it happened a few weeks ago, and I cannot shake the feeling, that regardless of what the best course of action would have been, that nothing was NOT the right one. I suppose this is something I will have to live with, because there is no longer any (conceivable) way to remedy the situation. But I doubt I will ever let anything like that slip past me again.... I cannot justify any reason why I should not have taken action - that boy is no less valuable than me or anyone else... What can one even begin to say to such a situation - I was rendered speechless.

I don't know what to do - my soul aches for the young boy I let go. That I looked away from. And my soul will always ache for him... My prayers will always include him - that he might forgive me. And that I might be granted the strength to FIND the right course of action in the future.

Observations from a Pool Deck: Thoughts on People, Abuse, Comedy, and Hope

Being a recently moved-out and pseudo-independent functioning member of society, I've spent a significant (and by that I mean about 50 hours this past week) amount of time on the deck of a local pool, observing people. And some of the things I've observed are rather interesting.

For some reason, people seem to think that if they don't know the people surrounding them that they are anonymous, that nobody observes them, and that they can do whatever they want, regardless of the fact that they are in public. As long as it's a strange public, it doesn't matter. And that applies to the pool, too. Being a lifeguard, I get the wonderful opportunity to eavesdrop and observe people from a very close range without being suspicious, or intrusive -- for some reason, we lifeguards seem to be invisible at the pool until one of two things happens; a) we blow our whistles, or b) you become a lifeguard yourself. But as long as I refrain from blowing my whistle or yelling (which, on slow days, is quite easy), I am allowed to watch and listen to all the drama that unfolds right here in my very own backyard.

Observation 1: There are many different skill levels that come to the pool to swim, particularly before work. In order to entertain myself during those long, dragging mornings and excessively long shifts, I'e begun to classify swimmers into different categories. Being a highly trained swimmer myself (ok, maybe not, but I've been doing it long enough) I feel that I can adequately classify swimmers as I see fit. That's the privilege that comes with grueling practices and early mornings in freezing water.

Angry Swimmers: These are the people who think that the faster and harder they put their hands into the water, the faster they are going to go. It doesn't matter what sort of technique you have, as long as you get your hand in the water as fast as humanly possible, you might as well be Michael Phelps.

Gorilla Swimmers: These are some of the most painful and awkward to watch.... These people quite literally look like gorillas when they swim - their arms don't really ever change position, and they ineptly paddle themselves through the water in a way that would make you think they are either a hairless monkey or their hands reek of something so putrid they can't stand to have it near their face... Something that doesn't smell like bananas.

Fish Swimmers: No, these are not swimmers that actually look natural in the water. Rather, they are the people who somehow manage to torque their body in such a way every time they take a stroke that rather than swimming straight up and down the lane, they manage to weave back and forth between the lane lines, in a way that looks, well, something like a fish. Not a particularly graceful fish, either....

Pinwheel/Scythe Swimmers: These are the people who simply hold their arms at one angle (either completely straight - pinwheel - or at a 90-degree angle - scythe - and simply move their arms that way. The scythe swimmers end up swinging their arms across their entire body underwater, like their trying to harvest wheat with their hands...). It looks so incredibly painful and yet at the same time so incredibly ridiculous....

I-Don't-Like-Getting-My-Face-Wet Swimmers: These are the people who refuse to put their faces in the water, and the people who tense up when their face gets wet, and make faces that look so absurd it occasionally makes me laugh out loud (which I guess makes me crazy....)

Some of these categories overlap; for example, a swimmer could be both a gorilla swimmer and an angry swimmer

Observation 2: High school really doesn't ever end. Boys are ALWAYS the topic of conversation at the pool amongst girls - even 45-year-old girls. It's absurd.

Lots of women with small children seem to have friends going through divorce. Either that or the pool is the congregating place for people who fall into that category. You have no idea how many women come the pool to either a) vent about their men, or b) gossip about somebody else's man - and generally not in a favorable light, either. Why is it that water seems to attract cocky men seeking women, and women seeking to get away from their men?

Observation 3: It's all about the parents. (Generally speaking). There are so many parents who bring their children to the pool to sit at a table on the other side of the deck and play around on their fancy iPhones. Even on busy days, moms bring their small (and by small I mean can barely walk) kids to the pool, and simply drop them in the water and walk away.... As lifeguards (invisible as we may be, they know we exist), and we are expected not just to keep kids safe but to babysit. THere are kids I see every day who are barely talking without parents even on deck....

So kids, when your parents take you to the pool -- it's not REALLY about you. It's about them.

Observation 4: Lifeguards are ALWAYS checking out the patrons. Ok, so not ALL lifeguards, but most. Not occasionally - always. Doesn't matter that the moms are 15 years older with 3 children and a big fat ring on their fingers and the guys checking them out have 5 piercings and not even a high school diploma yet. And, for some strange reason, when you're at the pool, apparently it's ok for you to tell your co-workers about ALL the hot men/women in the pool at that time, and continue to fantasize about them.... Great.

All of these observations lead to one VERY interesting work environment. Better than boring, I guess.