Sideways
The waves in Southern California have been crazy this summer. The ocean doesn't feel safe. I've been in the sparkling water, bobbing and feeling like a kid, and then panicked for air when wave after wave hits in a beautifully terrifying tempo. I've wanted to get back to shore and pushed and pushed forward, only to get pushed back and stuck in the swirl. They call it the washing machine.
Seasoned ocean-goers know that my technique was foolish. Swimming straight for the shoreline is how you empty yourself out. You're supposed to swim parallel to the shore instead. Sideways. Which feels completely counterintuitive, like abandoning the only direction you actually want to go.
The reason is that a rip current is narrow. Most of them are less than eighty feet across. It feels like the entire sea has you because you are inside it, facing the wrong way, spending every molecule of energy you have.
I've spent a good part of my life swimming straight at things. Replaying situations that were hurtful even when I knew it was time to move on. Wondering 'why' over and over at what felt like an injustice. Pushing the same conversation until we didn't even know where or how it began.
And there was a stretch this summer where I couldn't shake a fogginess, and my whole strategy was effort. Earlier mornings that were no longer productive no matter how much coffee I had. I kept pushing harder in exhausted delirium. It felt like the entire season had me.
It didn't. Looking back, it was a few weeks and one stalled project. Narrow. It only felt like the whole ocean because I was in it, facing the wrong way.
The lesson isn't to stop swimming. It's to stop swimming at it. The way out is usually sideways, unglamorous, and shorter than it feels from inside the rip. There are ways to keep the washing machine from taking more than it should. A nap. Noticing the thought and calling it out. Scripting the day instead of bracing for it. These are all strokes. Twenty strokes to the left and you're in calmer water.