Crystal Blue Panic Attack

I nearly forgot my password. That's how long it's been since I posted.

In a suburban Southern California tract home where paid work precludes the free kind, my blog has taken a major back seat.

My parents flew into LAX yesterday from New Hampshire, my home state. Soon they'll pick up the kids and take them for a dip in their beachside hotel pool. While my reunited family wiles away the afternoon in crystal blue liquid pleasure, I'll have my nose pressed to my dull laptop screen scratching out more work.

For once I'm not whining. A shocker, I know. I'm actually okay with not joining the pool party. It's no loss for me. Not for my kids and parents either. What they gain without my presence is more fun, more relaxation, more freedom. More, all around.

I'd be a buzz kill. Whenever I'm within toe-dipping distance of a body of water with the kids three, no matter how big or small, manmade or natural, I'm a paranoid freak. Make that an ANNOYING paranoid freak. For me, "Liquid" and "relaxation" are on completely different plains. How dry I am, literally and figuratively.

My kids will likely never learn to confidently swim in their own skin with Nervous Nellie Nagging Mommy on the rim of the pool, aiming narrowed, hyperprotective eyes in their wave-bobbing direction(s). Shooting palpable rays dripping with my gripping fear of drowning death unfairly and directly at them as they try their kid-best to master what amounts to one of the most important life and survivor skills humans can possess.

Right now both boys are exitedly rifling through their drawers in search of last year's swim attire. Next, I suppose, they'll turn the garage upside down foraging desperately for their "Subskates," strange Cheetos-colored skateboard-surfboard hybrids made from a mystery substance that feels like bubblegum blended with styrofoam.

Now they have towels. Whoa - Now their towels are doubling as rat tails. They're whipping each other. I'm ignoring their fraternal whip-fest, which is probably why it's coming to a quick halt. What good is it to annoy Mommy if she doesn't react (explode)? With rat tail time officially over, they've taken to the garden with bats in fist. Who knows how this could end? I prefer not to imagine.

Just as I won't imagine them sinking to the bottom of the pool, as I often did as a childhood doggy-paddling failure. I won't imagine them later this afternoon struggling against the water, out of my parents' careful and capable field of vision. Deep enough beneath the chlorinated water to not be heard. I won't imagine the worst as I almost always do. I won't cling to the worst case scenario.

I won't be there poolside. I won't hovercraft parent in the pool. I won't be there at all, and it's for the better.