I’ve been trying to work out the ‘nanosecond ‘.
Was it just the result of some better quality sleep? I hadn’t slept any longer, or any less interrupted, or with any less night sweating, as far as I am a aware. But maybe I stay longer in more restorative sleep. Who knows....

Anyway, today I swam. It was pretty wild out there. And lovely.
But swimming is always interesting at other levels.
I can be close to panic at times. This is far from being unfamiliar. I am very used to it and it passes and I am used to, and don’t mind, the persistent exposure therapy it involves. It can help with awareness and some understanding in the day job.

However, today I wondered about it again as it swept over in a moment, ironically as I was near the end of the swim.
It occurred to me that it is genuinely exposure. Everything is stripped away. I’ve always thought that the thing about swimming is that however tired or energised or happy or sad or anxious or depressed or whatever, it is just a case of moving my body from the land of effort into water where it is all very clear. You just have to swim, you have no choice. That’s it. It is effort but you can do nothing else, everything else is stripped away.
And I think that might be the nub of it. I realise that in the relentless exhaustion of carrying on I shore up, layer upon layer of shoring up, in order to keep going when it is the last thing I feel like.
Swimming strips it all away and the panic is the realisation of deep despair.
Which is okay.
I’m glad of it.
Where would we be without our bottom line.
And the bottom line is despair.
I almost always see, think of, feel, a sense of my husband.
But I also know that my not be the bottom line.
Beware the bottom line ... it never is ...!
The next 'bottom line' is me.
Trying to work out the me and the water.
The resistance? The fear? Of drowning?
Why?
We are the same aren’t we?
Or simply the effort of existing, of keeping going in a world of shoring up...

So, I’ll stop here as I slip deeper into the murky waters of metaphysical bollocks.