Do not brace yourself. In the bracing, there is hesitation, and in the hesitation, there is doubt. There is no room for doubt here. Begin counting as soon as you’ve turned the handle all the way to cold. You will still have one or two seconds of warm water but this isn’t cheating because it’s not; this is your shower. Turn your back to the stream of water. Cross your arms over your chest, if they aren’t already there. First will come the gooseflesh and then the hitch in your breath (or maybe it’s the other way around; the fine details of sequence have little meaning at this point). Your breath will come in sobs. Allow them: these forceful diaphragm kicks. Your lungs are the seat of your grief, which your breath might want to kick around, shake up, expel every so often.
Remember to keep counting. Begin to move from side to side, allowing the water to cascade over each shoulder. You can think of this as a warm up if that doesn’t somehow seem like a cruel joke. Gradually increase your movements. Soon you will be rotating your whole body under the stream of water.
Keep counting. You’ve been here before. Allow the memories of every other time you’ve been a bad-ass rise. That time you birthed a ten and a half pound baby. That time you said, “no” without explanation. That time you did not fill the awkward silence. That time you asked for help after the other time you asked for help and no one offered. That time you birthed a nine and a half pound baby. That time you said, “I don’t like that.” The time you lied and, in lying, remained true to yourself. That time you didn’t feel like smiling and so didn’t. Those times you smiled anyway and extended yourself grace later. That time you showed up to what everyone else knew was a gunfight and you didn’t even have a knife and you stayed anyway. That time you walked away.
Keep counting. You’re almost at the end. You can almost hear your Nordic forbear’s proud backslaps. Perhaps they even nod towards their tropical counterparts, who also value cold water, if not the displays of affirmation. No matter. You are whole.
Or skip the cold water. Read a poem instead. Read this poem instead. Keep counting. Look back up the page. How far you’ve come. A whole handswidth. Keep counting. Reach 100. Write a poem.
Rhena Writes 