Wild Swimming is an act of rebellion #mood

It’s madness they say! You are crazy, comes next.

I shed my clothes and stand in the cold. The skin whipping sand the wind carries feels like tiny bullets all over my legs. The moon makes an appearance when the clouds allow. The minus 10 degrees sea water almost feels like relief until the cold hits my bones.

F&!k comfort! F$!k easy! F$!k numbness of routine! F$!k numbness of living inside box designed by someone else! F$!k social norms that predicate value on my title, dress and income size!

I reject the comfort I have accepted for so long.

I renounce the routine that has me sitting staring at my laptop hours at a time, to an end that was never mine, just to feel safe.

I rage that I have allowed social norms to groom me into an accomodating middle aged woman who has forgotten how to sing and dance.

So now, I roam when the city sleeps. I swim along its edges in the dark waters of predawn life. I leave my footprints on the intercostal slither when the cold sand crunches beneath my feet. It is in these times I can be amorphous like the ocean. I swim out, let the water brace me and watch the sun rise. It is in this place I am whoever I want to be.

As I step out of the water and back into my other life, I bring a little bit more of that freedom with me, to help with the crazy :)