June 2025 came in like a freight train. It knocked me off my feet.
I suddenly experienced dizzy spells, and a physical and mental heaviness so intense that I struggled to leave my bed and stand up. But my recent blood work had come back normal. My joint pain levels had remained blessedly stable and low. I’d been able to travel to Vancouver, Halifax, Utah, and New York, just in the previous few months. What was wrong, this time?
The body keeps the score. I’m grieving something, I thought. But I don’t know what.
New grief had reawakened old grief. Both demanded to be understood. And I had no idea just how many layers of pain both wounds would hold. If I had known, I might have just stayed lying down.
What do I do? I know I’m upset about…something? If I wasn’t sure what, I couldn’t know how to process it. But I tried to take seriously what I’d learned over the years with chronic illness: the importance of soothing the nervous system, especially with movement, to return to a sense of safety. Regardless of what was causing my symptoms, that principle remained true. But I felt so dizzy standing up.
The pool. I could go to the pool and try to do some gentle exercise there. At the very worst, I couldn’t fall if I got dizzy in the water. I could just float if I needed to.
I’d already booked my bus to the pool through paratransit a few days earlier, and even though I wanted to cancel, I knew I’d possibly get penalized for a late cancellation. So I gritted my teeth, packed my towel, and forced myself out of bed that Friday morning. It was a good thing that paratransit had door-to-door service, because if the bus hadn’t come right to my doorstep, I don’t think I would have left the house.
I got to the pool. One older woman in the change room smiled and made small talk. I normally love to talk to strangers, but today, I could only get out a few half-hearted replies.
It was a recreational swim hour. You normally can’t swim laps at a rec swim. Usually, you have to bob along while watching constantly for 5-year-olds who might cannonball into the water a few inches from your face. But it was noon on a weekday, so the pool was nearly empty. As I waded in, I saw that there was one lane roped off, which I’d never seen during a rec swim over the years. I asked the lifeguard, “It’s open for swimming laps?” It was.
“It’s there just for you!” the woman from the changeroom said.
I alternated between swimming some slow laps and walking (/dog paddling) some. I relaxed into the water and let it carry the heavy weight of I don’t know what that sat on my chest. It was safe to fall apart here. You can’t tell that someone’s crying if their face is already wet.
We returned to the change room to towel off. The older woman continued her attempts at making cheerful conversation. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk much. Just having a very hard day,” I ended up spilling out to her. “That’s alright, I shouldn’t have pried,” she said. “Normally I do like to talk to chat with people,” I confessed, “It’s just a very hard day today.”
“That’s OK,” she said kindly. “I hope we see you here again.”
Maria McCann 