Chapter Fifteen: Stress Ball (~jinghan)

Note From the Author: This is something that happened a week and a half ago, I had blogged it out in my mind but then forgot to blog it out for real. So here you are, more glorious ranting about swimming.

Sometimes you end up spending those hours between classes and after classes hanging out with your friends on one of the many patches of grass the University of Melbourne likes boast about. (This is only an available option now that you are in second year and the word ‘friend’ finally has a more concrete form.) And it’s just so much easier not to go and get whatever you need to get done on the other side of the campus done.

I haven’t been swimming at the Melbourne Uni pool all semester. My friends are all hanging around after our last class on Friday, the weather is nice, I don’t have to tutor my student at Friday Night School because it is school holidays and it takes a bit of self control to say “I’m going for a swim. I might see you afterwards if you guys are still around.”

The familiar hurdle of balancing all your clothing on some dry patch while you pull your bathers on. The familiar feeling of wanting to shrinking away from the water as your toe first touches the coldness of the water. The familiar scream of your heart as you plunge forward anyway and thrash out that first cold cold cold lap.

It isn’t until I’m on my 14th or 15th lap that I realise how tense I’ve been. How much frustration has been building up and manifesting physically in my muscles, screaming to get out. It reminds me of a time…

I bang the door of my room shut. Not because my door needs shutting. Just because I need to hear that satisfying bang after a long tiring awful day. I bang my wardrobe open. And I bang my drawers shut after I’ve taken out fresh underwear.

It reminds me of a time…

I’m sitting on my floor, tucked up in myself around my pillow wanting to rip it to shreds, to hear that satisfying rip of fibres breaking and stuffing flying out. Instead I bury my face in it and scream silently into it’s soft belly.

It reminds me of a time…

I strangle the penguin-shaped stress ball in my hand but it annoyingly bounces back when I release my grip. After a long tiring day, its invincibility frustrates me. I hurl it at my wardrobe with as much force as I have. A satisfying bang and rattle. Good for you penguin. Good for you.

It reminds me of a time…

My hand is shaking as I attempt to pick up the cup of tea. Tea usually calms me down, makes everything okay, but today I’m frustrated at myself, at the world and every time I pick up the cup I am overwhelmed by an urge to hurl it at something and hear that satisfying shattering. The release of tension. But I don’t. I put the cup down and shake with tears, because just the thought of the violence of the act scares me.

Once I was making tea for the same reason, and banging the pantry doors and flinging the water from the teapot as I was rinsing it. But in the carelessness of my movements, the carelessness for everything I accidentally dropped the teapot on the floor and white ceramic scattered across the floor. The violence of the smashed ceramic startles me and leaves me in panic-stricken shock. And I cried because I had let my frustration kill my good friend the teapot who was just trying to help me calm down.

It’s a war between my body and my mind that goes on and on. My body wants to let out all the anger and frustration, to break the integrity of something solid. My mind tired and unsure is scared of anything too loud, too violent, and curls up in fear at the thought of not being in control of my actions, of regret. And I am stranded stock-still in no-mans-land not wanting to move because of the hidden mines all around.

The water is cool against my hot skin. My muscles strain, the water resists, and I beat it with every stroke I take. I punch the water for everything that has gone against me in my week. For the assignments I had to complete. Punch. For the insomnia I have to suffer. Punch. For the ache of missing my boyfriend. Punch. For the early mornings I had to get up for. Punch. For the feeling of not being able to concentrate in class. Punch. For the jealously of my friends who seem to get through uni with so much less stress. Punch. Punch. Punch.

For once I do not have to restrain the physical manifestation of my frustration. In fact, for every stroke I take my body and mind are propelled forward. And by the time I have swum for 90 minutes I cannot remember why I was so frustrated at everything, my skin is aglow with the energy of flowing blood, but my muscles are limp and lax with tiredness.

I take a hot shower. I find my friends sitting on the wall outside the swim centre patiently waiting for me. The air is warm even though the night is starting creep up the eastern sky.

I smile.

I have found the perfect stress ball.