Tomorrow morning I won’t be going swimming

Tomorrow morning I won’t be waking up at 5am cursing the darkness and the alarm clock. I won’t be squinting into the dark to make out the faded semi-glowing dial, with its hands sweeping relentlessly round, counting down the minutes until it’s time to get up. I won’t be lying waiting for the clock to whine its call to action. I won’t be throwing my arm out, aiming for the button that will restore the sleepy silence.

Tomorrow morning I won’t be having another well rehearsed argument with myself about how tired I am and how much I could do with the extra hour in bed and how swimming can wait till the evening. I won’t be making a pact with myself about not-going-in-the-morning-is-ok-as-long-as-you-go-after-work. I won’t be rolling over for an extra blissfully stolen hour of sleep.

Not only that, but tomorrow morning I won’t be successful in forcing myself out of bed in the early morning light. I won’t be bending over the bath picking still damp swimming things out and pushing them grumpily into my swimming bag. I won’t be rummaging at the back of the cupboard to find merino base layers and wooly hats and socks and scarves and extra jumpers and clean underwear. Or filling my flask with hot ribena. I won’t be standing on the road outside waiting for my accountability buddy, Anna. We won’t grunt our hellos and drive full of expectations and nerves, to the Lido we love.

We won’t rush past the ticket booth towards the pool, with me peering anxiously at the temperature display on our way past. We won’t strip off our outer layers, revealing our warm bodies already clad in swimming costumes, like sleepy superheroes, ready to be woken.

Tomorrow morning we won’t — separately — go about our rituals of getting into the cold cold water: Anna, jamming her feet into too-tight pool shoes, shuffling awkwardly down to the shallow end, before walking into the water and wading to the deep; me, fiddling with my goggles before lowering myself down the stairs at the deep end and gasping as the water hits me. We won’t swim and swim in our respective lanes, until we’ve had our fill of this beautiful steely place. We won’t stay in too long and have to rush getting dressed because we’d rather swim another five minutes. We won’t laugh and smile afterwards and compare distances and feelings on the journey home. We won’t talk about how lovely it was to feel the sun hit our shoulders, or chatter about the other swimmers we’ve seen, or wonder if we could have, should have, stayed in longer. We won’t vow cheerily to meet another morning, having already forgotten — and forgiven — the blackness of the early start.

So now that lockdown is back, tomorrow morning I won’t be swimming. Nor the next day, nor the next. And nothing feels right about it. And all those days I’d rather have stayed in bed seem like the worst days I’ve ever had and if I could swap them now for time in the water I’d do anything. Just anything.

If you liked this article, please clap the clappy things below to show your appreciation. Click the (Follow) button if you’d like Medium to alert you when something new is published