Swim, drown

or become a mermaid

Photo by Daoud Abismail on Unsplash

When I was little my parents would take my brother and me to this resort on holiday. We stayed in a caravan which was fun as a child. This was a time when I had both my parents. A typical family.

I have become aware of so much as an adult re-parenting myself. Why I am the way I am. Why certain things happen. Like, how I show up in the world as my astrological Sun sign but I am more like my Moon sign than I realized. As a Cancer Sun, family is important to me. I am empathic, intuitive, and a natural nurturer but don’t always receive the nurturing, love, and affection I give. I instinctively know and anticipate what others need. It is the role I subconsciously took on or was required to.

My family did not stay intact and for the time that it was, many things influenced me beyond my awareness. The dynamics of my parents with each other and with us. No parent is perfect and as a parent myself, we all do our best. Ultimately our inner child benefits from us gaining awareness about our inner world and how the outer world affects it.

I have a very vivid memory of one time we were on holiday at the resort. I remember finding a ladybug and keeping it with me, ‘looking after it’. I did this often at home too. Nature was a friend. Books were friends. I yearned for connection and had a vivid imagination and now also recall sensing a world and energies beyond this physical one. Some I have an understanding of who and what they are now. There is a feeling of familiarity, comfort, and knowing but that may be a story for another day.

In this memory, my brother and I had been swimming at the pool for the residents staying at the resort. My parents were not with us. I don’t have any recollection of things we all did together on this holiday. Neither of us were able to swim yet. The pool had one shallow end that led into the larger deep end. We would stay in the shallow end. Likely knowing that we should.

At some point I noticed a small child (around my age at the time) in the deeper end not far from the separation between the shallow side struggling, drowning. No one else noticed. The place was busy and loud. I have always been extremely observant and hyper-vigilant even while having my head firmly up in the clouds in another world.

I think I had tried to get someone else’s attention but I wasn’t quite sure how to either. I was introverted and quiet then. The bold, audacious toddler I was before was no more. I may have realized the child needed to be helped urgently and moved toward her. On the inside of the pool, along the wall was an elevation and I walked along it till I reached the child. I held out my hand to pull her out and she pulled me in. She struggled, holding onto me, and pushed me under. Getting herself out in the process, while I was now in the position she had been in. Drowning. At some point, an adult near me noticed and helped me out.

I didn’t see the child again or know who she was.

Throughout my life, I kept repeating this theme. Helping others and even attempting to ‘save’ people and then nearly drowning myself. To me, if someone is in need or hurt, you help. I saved myself too. Many times over. Learning to be independent and possibly too self-reliant. Part of me felt like or knew, no one else would rescue me. The people around me were all struggling to keep their heads above water. That did not stop me from being a carer, a shoulder to cry on, and allowing others to lean on me even when I could not carry their weight and mine. Until I no longer could.

you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before helping anyone else

This point of succumbing and surrender has led to great inner and outer change. Everything falling apart, loss, pain, and growth. I could no longer hold everything together. Picking up the pieces, rebuilding, and finding new ones for the ones that cannot be salvaged is taking time. This is a lonely process yet I am finding real connection. Finding Love in ways I could never have imagined. Finding aspects of myself I may not have found otherwise.

this place has been good to me

it has wrecked me

I am grateful

I never want to be someone who does not Love deeply, show up and give unconditionally but I know now I deserve the same. Especially from and to myself. I have learned how to ‘swim’. I am more often than not in unknown depths even though I am afraid. Still, I long for the shore.

Thank you for reading.

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Leave me a comment. How is your inner child doing? I hope you get to know them better.

Love Lezel