Your grit is showing.
That shy fifteen-year-old girl you were who, seemingly out of nowhere, bellowed “NO!!!” at your friend once you saw her look of resignation that said, “Let’s just let this boat sink.”
Her shock made YOU shocked by whatever had just come out of your mouth to make her look at you that way…
but it worked.
Instinctively, you summoned the last dregs of the resolve you didn’t know you had, and in a split second, you’d both balanced the boat. It overflowed, but it stayed afloat.
This was just gym class, so supposedly, the stakes were low. We were only in a high school swimming pool, after all…
Twenty years later, though, my boat’s not afloat because the waters are calm; I’ve been rocking and bailing SINCE high school. The seas are stormy and my vessel is damaged, but that bellow in my belly has yet to let the waters take me.
This is not a drill.