Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

When I was young, my family and I went on a white water rafting trip. Our guide was a talented, tanned, young woman who could probably could have bench pressed my father. There was a moment when we were all floating outside of the boat except my dad, and the raft started to drift in the wrong direction. The guide had to swim upstream to help him steer, and the image of her doing the butterfly stroke against the strongest current I'd ever felt is an image that will stay with me for the rest of my life. She was so strong! I tried to turn and swim, and I wasn't even staying in one place. She managed to beat the current, return to the boat and save the day.

In a nutshell, she is my hero. I want to be able to beat that current. I want to be that strong.

Unfortunately, I'm not. My life is the current, and I can barely stay afloat.

This boy I'm seeing, I know how bad he is for me. All my women's studies training is screaming in my ear to leave, but I keep trying to fix him. I keep thinking if I just give enough, he'll stop needing. I give him my most powerful butterfly stroke (a rose at the airport when he arrives, little surprises at work...) and yet all I'm able to do is stay still. The moment I stop swimming, I'm rushed downstream. The first slip in affection, and he turns back into the insecure ball of lint from before.

I'm swimming towards the goal of a life of travel. I'm so close, sometimes I'll catch a good upstroke like Nicaragua, and yet, I'm still not there. What are the types of jobs that will let me move to a new place every six months, pay the bills and get me work visas? Hotel management for a large firm? Pilot? Mail order bride?

I swim towards happiness. Some elusive elation is in my raft and I know if I just swim hard enough, if I just master my efforts, I can get there. Either that, or I should just let go and enjoy the lazy river of life. How bad could the rapids ahead be? Hmm. They could be really bad. If I stop trying, I might end up living in my dad's basement in the same town I grew up in, working for the same pizza place as I did in college. In the end, I just keep swimming- I'll get there.