the way i swam (looking back / reaching back)

Same truth. Different journey.

There is something particularly cruel about criticizing the way someone swims while they're drowning.

I've been sitting with that thought.

Not because drowning is a particularly original metaphor for struggling. We talk about drowning in work, drowning in grief, drowning in responsibility. We say we're barely keeping our heads above water.

But I started thinking about something more specific:

What happens when someone standing safely on the shore starts criticizing the way you're swimming?

Why are you panicking?

Why are you holding onto that?

Why can't you just let go?

Why are you making so much noise?

Why aren't you swimming in a straight line?

Why do you keep going under?

From the shore, perhaps there are better ways to swim.

But there's one rather important detail missing from that analysis.

I wasn't swimming. I was trying not to drown.

And once I understood that distinction, two songs appeared.

Not one song with two possible endings.

Two songs.

Because there were two different places I needed to go with that realization.

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i forgive the way i swam

Both songs begin in essentially the same place.

For a long time, I looked backward at some of the ways I've survived difficult periods of my life and judged myself for them.

Why did I hold on so tightly?

Why did I react that way?

Why couldn't I see what seems obvious now?

Why didn't I just let go?

Why couldn't I find the shore?

Those questions are remarkably easy to ask once your feet are touching solid ground.

They're much harder to answer honestly if you forget what it felt like when they weren't.

When you're drowning, you grab things.

You panic.

You gasp.

You kick.

You reach.

You may swim toward something that turns out not to be shore.

You may cling to something longer than you should because, at one point, it was the only thing keeping your head above water.

Survival isn't always graceful.

And something can be necessary for survival at one point in your life without being something you need to carry forever.

That's an important distinction for me.

Understanding why I did something isn't the same as deciding I should keep doing it. Compassion for the person I was doesn't require me to remain that person.

It simply means I can stop standing on the shore of my own history criticizing someone who couldn't see what I can see now.

So both songs arrive at the same realization:

I forgive the way I swam.

It got me here.

And that's where the doors open.

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looking back

In one version, I reach the shore and turn around.

But I don't look toward the water.

I look at the person who was standing on the shore.

And suddenly the question changes.

For years, the question was:

What was wrong with the way I survived?

Now I can ask:

Why were you criticizing me while I was trying to survive?

That isn't the same thing as refusing responsibility for the things we do when we're hurting.

Survival doesn't grant us immunity from accountability. We can understand why we behaved a certain way and still acknowledge the consequences of that behavior.

But accountability and shame aren't the same thing.

And neither are accountability and accepting someone else's interpretation of everything you did to stay alive.

Once I stopped automatically blaming the person in the water, I could finally see the person standing on the shore.

That's where the way i swam (looking back) goes.

It gets angry.

It asks questions I once directed toward myself in the opposite direction.

What did you think drowning looked like?

Did you expect quiet hands and measured breaths?

Was I supposed to sink gracefully enough that my distress didn't inconvenience you?

Was I supposed to make desperation attractive?

And perhaps most importantly:

Why was the person fighting for another breath being evaluated by the person who already had air?

There's anger in that.

I'm okay with the anger.

Because anger isn't always the opposite of healing.

Sometimes anger arrives because healing has finally made enough room for us to recognize that something wasn't okay.

I can forgive the way I swam.

That doesn't mean I have to forgive you for criticizing it.

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reaching back

The other door opens from exactly the same place.

Same water.

Same drowning.

Same shore.

Same realization:

I forgive the way I swam.

But this time, when I turn around, I look toward the water.

And I see someone else struggling.

That's the way i swam (reaching back).

This version asks a different question:

Now that I understand what I needed, what will I do when someone else needs it?

And the answer isn't rescue.

That's important to me.

I don't think love always means jumping into the water and carrying someone to shore.

Sometimes we can't.

Sometimes doing that would drown both people.

Sometimes the person in the water has to make the journey themselves.

But there is an enormous difference between refusing to drown with someone and standing safely on shore critiquing their technique.

I didn't need someone to swim for me.

I didn't need someone who knew exactly where the shore was.

I didn't even need someone who could make the water calm.

I needed someone close enough to hear:

I'm tired. I can't see the shore.

And answer:

I'm not going away.

That's what the reaching-back version discovers.

People who love us don't necessarily have the power to rescue us.

But they can make survival less lonely.

They can stop adding weight.

They can stop demanding that distress be expressed in whatever form makes them most comfortable.

They can reach.

And sometimes a hand doesn't pull you all the way to shore.

Sometimes it just helps you take another breath.

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two doors

These songs created something new for me.

I've made alternate versions of songs before. I've revisited songs after time and experience changed what I understood about them.

This is different.

These songs travel together.

They begin with the same experience.

They carry the same wounds.

They ask the same questions.

They arrive at the same shore.

And eventually, they arrive at exactly the same sentence:

I forgive the way I swam.

Then a door opens.

Actually, two of them do.

Through one door, I turn toward the person who stood on shore and finally allow myself to see their actions clearly.

Through the other, I turn toward someone still in the water and decide to offer what I once needed.

I've started thinking of these as Sliding Door songs.

The same truth. The same narrator. The same emotional journey to a particular moment.

And then two doors.

Same truth. Different journey.

Neither song is the original.

Neither is the alternate.

Neither represents the emotionally healthier choice.

Neither exists to correct the other.

And neither is the road not taken.

Both roads get taken.

That's why these songs exist together.

That's why they'll be released together.

Because human beings can encounter exactly the same truth and need to travel in different emotional directions from it.

Sometimes I need to look back.

Sometimes I need to reach back.

Sometimes I need the song that says:

What happened to you wasn't okay.

Sometimes I need the song that asks:

What will you do with what happened to you?

And sometimes I need both.

Anger isn't failed forgiveness.

Compassion isn't denial.

Holding someone accountable doesn't mean you haven't healed.

Choosing to offer someone else what you weren't given doesn't mean you've absolved the person who withheld it.

Those truths can exist together.

Maybe that's the point.

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which door do you need today?

There's one image connecting both songs that I keep returning to.

A person finally reaches shore.

Their feet touch solid ground.

They can breathe.

For the first time, they can look somewhere other than toward the next wave.

And then they turn around.

In one song, they see the person who stood safely on shore criticizing every desperate stroke.

For the first time, they stop asking what was wrong with the drowning person and start asking what was happening with the person who watched.

Looking back.

Through the other door, they see someone still in the water.

And because they remember exactly what that water felt like, they walk back toward it.

Not far enough to drown again.

Not to become someone's savior.

Just close enough to reach.

Reaching back.

I don't think one of those people is more healed than the other.

I think they're both human.

And maybe tomorrow they'll need to walk through the other door.

What matters to me is what happened before either choice:

The person who spent so long criticizing every frightened, desperate stroke finally looks back at the water and understands:

You were drowning.

You did what you knew how to do.

You kept breathing.

You found the shore.

I forgive the way you swam.

Everything after that is a choice.

And maybe that's why these needed to be two songs.

Because once you finally stop judging yourself for how you survived, there isn't only one direction you're allowed to go.

There isn't one correct door.

Both doors are open.

Which one do you need today?