Riptide Summer
La Côte des Basques, Biarritz, France
When I was young, I was lucky enough to spend summers with my grandparents. Our aunts would take us to the beach for a few hours of sun, running, swimming, and playing in the sand. But there were always stern warnings about the riptides, fears that we would get dragged out to sea. We needed to swim between the flags so that we could stay safe and avoid riptides.
If you're caught in a riptide, here's what's important: the general instinct is to swim against the riptide and head back to shore. However, this doesn't work. The riptide will continue to pull you out, and you'll exhaust yourself and potentially drown. The counter-intuitive way is to let the riptide take you out a bit, swim parallel to the shore until you're out of the riptide, then you let the waves carry you back to shore.
As the COVID delta variant surges, I feel like I've found myself in a bit of a riptide. I still haven't found my dream home, I'm not traveling to see friends and even introverts can get tired of staying home. It's been up and down for all of us as our dreams of returning to 'normal' are once again delayed.
I remind myself that swimming against this riptide is fruitless. I will exhaust myself and make no progress. It seems like the time is right to just tread water, appreciate the ocean, and start swimming parallel to shore for the time being. At some point, I'll be out of the riptide and can make progress towards shore. When I reach the shore, I will return to a different part of the beach, where new adventures will be possible.
Looking back on past experiences in my life, I recognize many riptide moments: so much wasted effort for little results and much frustration. However, when the time was right, I surprised myself with great results and minimal effort. So I'm going to label this summer as a riptide summer and appreciate all of the good things I already have: A temporary home that I love in a neighborhood filled with great places for walking, Wallace - my constant appreciative companion, amazing friends who are available to chat, and a family, that although is spread globally, continues to stay in touch and connected!