LIQUID DREAMS AND WET MEMORIES

How Much I Have Forgotten the Sea

Being 38 has its toll on me. I felt tired and frustrated with work. I was so challenged this year with my work that I have even decided to resign and look for another. I know 38 is not that old yet, but I am roughly half way through life. Men's life expectancy is getting shorter that I think 70 is even an exaggeration. However, I am tired and frustrated with my work, because of my own fault. I cannot blame both to others. I have to modify some of my work behavior and relationship with peers and colleagues, even to my employers. When 2009 started, I promised to change. I worked on being "meaner" this time as the principal to both my teachers and my students. I also became more open with my thoughts, and sadly voiced them out as condescending opinions. I don't care. I was just tired of being the good boy, which I am not. Because I put on some weight last year, I also promise to lose some this year. It maybe a little late because I have just started this April after school closed. I'm on my first week of exercise and sensible eating. Today, I took a swim in the sea to cool down.

I live by the sea. It is just a stone's throw from the house. When I was still young and everything was pristinely beautiful, the sea was where I spend most of my day. At about 8 in the morning and whenever it was high tide, my friends and I were already in the water, paddling ourselves like hell. I learned how to swim earlier in life. Most of us did, so one could just imagine how much fun we had then. We always ate lunch in the sand and continued our beach frolic and swim until sun down. By 4 in the afternoon, we were all sun burned, not just tanned. Today I sport a sun kissed bronze skin, courtesy of my hay days at sea. Our beach fun did not just stop with swimming. Whenever there were fisherman's boats around, definitely the owner would have a hard time looking for his boat afterwards. I could row boat before and I can still do it equally as well today. These memories came rushing back to my mind as I spent an hour this morning at sea.

My purpose of swimming this morning was to cool down after exercise and help me with my sore muscles. It cannot be denied that sea water offers healing wonders too, not just fun. I do a lot of cooling down as I do warm ups whenever I exercise. I always feel less sore whenever I do both well. However, the cool sea water does more magic to my sore muscles. Today, I felt quite sore with my abdominals although I did only a few reps of sit ups yesterday. This is good news of course. Another good news is in my quads, trices, biceps and pecs. At least I am in for a good start. I think I have to do more reps for my delts. I did not feel any tightness there. My traps also were quite sore. I am happy with the way I am doing. I always believe in less pain, not the overkill. I do not bulk that much nor do I want to. I just would like to trim down and live healthy. This is why I seldom suffer too much muscle pain after working out. A nice, long dip in the sea usually cools me and relaxes my tight muscles. I could not, however, resist the temptation to do several lapses of freestyle swim this morning. The feeling was different. I just missed the sea. I haven't been to the beach for almost two years. I was so excited swimming, feeling so carefree and relaxed.

I also got to clear my mind whenever I am at the beach or in the sea swimming. When I still used to mountain bike before, I usually made the shore my last stop. If I did not decide to take a dip to cool myself, I just sat there, rest to catch my breath. While sitting, looking afar, I usually got a clearer view of everything that has happened so far in my life. I was able to reflect on the lapses I have failed to do and the good deeds I have done. It is also by the sea that I got to come up with the most rational decisions in life. There is just something with the calm of the waves and the breeze of the wind that soothes my mind. That same magic by the sea worked again to me this morning. Looking afar, not at the zenith, but the green mountains that hover over my place, I felt relieved of the days' problems. I felt an unexplained peace in my heart as I bobbed my head up and down the water line. I remembered some of the things I still have to do that have been bothering me for quite a time. I did not feel the pressure though. Instead, everything just fell in the right place and I got out of the water knowing what would be the next best thing to do to help me pass by the day.

It is downright shameful living by the sea and not able to enjoy it for almost two years. I am indeed embarrassed and I cannot feign work as an excuse. Now that I have refocused my life and have been trying to straighten out everything, I see the sea again. It was there, it is there and it will forever be there. Only that I refused to see it. I have forgotten the magic the sea brings to my life. I have been so engrossed with work and troubled with life lately, but if only I have run to the sea for some moments of peace, I would not have reached my wit's end. I forget that the sea can remind me of my happy childhood memories. It can vividly bring back to my mind long lost childhood friends who I no longer know where. The sea can bring physical healing. Whatever has pained me for a time would have been healed by the warm lapping waves of the sea against the body. My troubled mind would have been soothed by the hypnotic calm of sea ripples and gentle breeze. How foolish of me to have forgotten all these! Today is Earth Day. I think it was all the sea that beacons me back to him. I am reminded all today of the mysteries of life and how they unravel to us in as simple as the sea, and as mundane as the racing waves.