It was a year ago that I was swimming in Lake LeHommeDieu. It was perhaps unusually warm for a September afternoon. But what surprised me the most is how far I had to go to get deeper. 

I suppose everything seems “far enough” when you’re young. The distance from shore. What we give to each other — our family, our friends. Maybe I thought it was accumulative, giving this friendship. This love. But I’m not sure that it is. I think the more we live, the more we need to give. Every day. And not just for others, but for ourselves. 

Each year as I grew in the cold of winter, I found my summer self going deeper. Wanting to. Needing to. And sure, it was a little scary, wandering further from the safety of shore. But oh, how exciting. How joyful to be in the deep. 

In life and in love, I want to do the same — get in way over my head. Daring to feel it all. Give it all. In every shade of blue. 

It might sound silly, but I always thought the water remembered me. Remembered how far I went out the year before. Knew how much I had grown, and encouraged me to keep going. Buoying me when my feet no longer touched the bottom. 

On the hardest of them, I like to think the day remembers me as well. Knows how much I can handle. Tells me how much I have grown. Encourages me to keep going. Of course some days I’m frightened, but I learned long ago, I’m only ever buoyed in the deep.