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.

Pretty and Witty and Gay!

Maybe I should feel bad... but I don't. I'm catching a little bit of flack for my actions as of late. Some people might see what I'm doing as inconsiderate. I've done some reevaluating and I've changed my perspective and motivations to be a little more... selfish. Eek! You mean I'm actively pursuing my own happiness? How rude!

Maybe I should back up and fill you in as to what caused such a change. I was never selfless in my actions. I've always had my own interests in mind, but I feel like I had some awareness as to what I'm doing to other people, a certain responsibility to the feelings of strangers. As I watched a 2 year old friend yell "MINE" and grab my camera away from me, I realized that we're born with the need to look out for ourselves. We don't even have a concept of other people until quite some time after we're born. I have a reoccurring image of myself at age 60, looking back at the life I've lived, and realizing the people I've been looking out for, stressing about their feelings, they won't matter in the least. Now, I'm not throwing family or friends under the bus here, but random strangers who disapprove of my dating habits? Fuck em. The people higher up than me at work who don't pull their weight but who I don't want to make look bad? They won't matter one iota to the 60 year old me. What will matter is whether or not I made myself happy. So that's what I've been doing, and it's been working out pretty well.

I was walking around the resort that I live at, and a friend was watching from a penthouse above. He called me later to ask me why I was so happy. I didn't know what he was talking about, but apparently, I was dancing. Skipping, disco handing, twirling, the whole gambit. I didn't even know I was doing it. I guess the happiness crusade is working. I feel pretty... :)