Just Keep Swimming

I've lost my voice.  Again!  I know, it's becoming a bit of a habit. Not one that I enjoy, which is a shame.  Most habitual occupations are ones that you secretly enjoy, like sucking your thumb, drinking too much gin or reaching for a cigarette as soon as you get out of work - you get some pleasure from them.  I can't say that I get any comfort from not being able to speak.

"It'll be stress," people have said to me this week, "don't you think?"
If I could answer them then I would say that I don't think so.  I don't feel very stressed. I was tired but I've slept well for the last five nights (unheard of).  You are now thinking that I'm in denial and am not acknowledging the fact that my Dad died at the end of February and the funeral is next week.  You think that has to be stressful. I'm not sure it is.  It's sad but as I said before my overwhelming feeling is still pride at having had such a wonderful father.  I do think it's wrong that crematoriums are so busy funerals can't happen for at least a month but it's not stressful, in fact it takes some stress away because you don't have to rush to do everything.  Tears will have been a factor but it doesn't explain all the other times I've lost my voice (every 4-6 weeks for the last fiveyears). I haven't been stressed or sad, everytime. Speech therapy gave me a list of things to do, like not cough, drink only water, eat very little chocolate, yoga, have neck massages and a raft of vocal exercises. I do all of those and it makes no difference. The camera up the nose gave my vocal cords a clean bill of health and I'm even more laid back than usual at work at the moment because none of it really matters.

Louise Hay, alternative health guru and all-round-annoyingly-super-positive-person, has some ideas about health issues that become habits.  In her world, you have to embrace the symptoms as a clue to what is going on with your psyche then you say (ha) affirmations, to deal with it.  As I've tried everything else and people keep telling me it must be stress I thought I'd look at it with an open mind.

She says that problems with the throat are to do with blocked creativity.  So, I just need to unblock my creativity, give me that plunger, I'm ready to go for it. Just how you do that is a mystery.  I wasn't aware that it was blocked.  She says that laryngitis could also be to do with not speaking up for yourself and resentment of authority.  I know I said I was going to keep an open mind but seriously? I just can't help saying what I think; it just pops out. It's true, I'm not exactly a fan of some authority figures but I tend to find them funny, rather than resenting them.  Mostly, if people tell me what to do I will do it if I want or pretend to agree but do my own thing if I don't.  Do I need to actually start telling people their ideas are rubbish, rather than showing them my better ones? Writers always know it's best to show rather than tell but I'm willing to give it a go.

The other piece of advice people give me is to rest. Sitting around doing nothing doesn't help. I worked that out four years ago, in fact it just makes your neck and shoulders tense, which doesn't help. Taking people's advice, I had a day and a half off work. I didn't speak. The first half day I lay on the sofa feeling sorry for myself. It was boring. The next, I did silent housework. I was bored beyond belief. If I was meant to be standing up for myself then I was going to be at work. If people didn't want to hear my hoarse, whispery, breathy voice then that was their problem not mine. I made some signs. Kids like a challenge. A silent teacher can be fun!

While I was having my silent housework day I came across a photo of me and my Dad at a holiday park in Hayling Island. It's a cute picture.

It reminded me of how much I like swimming now and how if I'm asking for what I want, it's to just get back to swimming (physically and metaphorically). What the picture doesn't show is the level of my terror. Both Dad and I are smiling but I was frightened; scared of everything, especially water, dogs and bees and all of  them had been there that day. I wanted to be able to do it but I couldn't. Dad took me to Gloucester Park for swimming lessons. My cousin also went. I remember looking at her swimming across the width of the pool and being awestruck at how she wasn't clinging to the side in terrified tears. Her dad, my jolly green giant of an uncle (his joke, not mine) always tried stories to take away my fear. During a thunderstorm, he told me that it was just Bugs Bunny falling down the stairs. It never worked because I just wanted to know how a cartoon character had got into the sky in the first place. I wasn't a quick fix. It took patience and logic. For thunderstorms I needed statistics and counting and for swimming I needed hours of practice, gently letting air out of armbands and cajoling assurances that I could do it, which took more patience than a swimming teacher could manage so he started to teach me himself. He gave me mantras to say: "Look at me, I'm a gymnast," before jumping in and, "I won't drown if I keep going."

So, if you see me in the pool muttering to myself. I could be repeating the mantra, "I am free to ask for what I want. It is safe to express myself. I am at peace," which is Louise Hay's mantra for laryngitis.

One of the problems of this mantra is that when anyone asks me what I want, I think of food. The Long Suffering Husband is the same. When I gave up chocolate for my voice, I asked him to tell me something nice because I was feeling miserable. "Chocolate eclairs, they're nice," he said after some thought. Dad used to take me into the upstairs swimming pool cafe for a cup of bovril and a slice of hot buttered toast. Maybe, that's what I'll ask for. It's a long time since I've had Bovril.