BALMORHEA...Bitter disappointment - Sweet contentment...

Balmorhea...Well, it wasn't what I'd expected or planned...it was worse and better...

I'll be blunt...Saturday sucked. We headed out early and I felt ok about the whole thing. I was not used to being up on a Saturday way before 10 am and certainly not used to being half way to the middle of nowhere by then, but that's where I found myself. We got to Balmorhea before the rest of our dive group, checked into the Cactus Motel and found a little roadside burger hut to have lunch. I had a 'grill' cheese and some fries and we headed to the state park. I had a little bit of a headache and I suppose I was a bit anxious about the dive, but all in all I felt pretty confident that things would be fine. We geared up -- for those of you who do not scuba dive this is definitely not the fun part... I've only done it three times, but each time I have been afraid I was doing something wrong. It's pretty tedious...lots of straps to tighten and nozzles to turn, things to clip on to your BCD and fins to put on your feet -- these activities are all made more tedious by the fact that the complete use of my right hand would make these tasks easier and I still just don't quite have that. My sweet niece/dive buddy/alternate air source/Kelsey does make this easier because she's a fish and super confident and helps me when I need it without too much rolling of her eyes.

During Saturday's dive prep we had the added joy of squeezing into wetsuits while a pool full of onlookers gawked at us. We got in, did our weight checks, and put in our regulators. As we got the instructions for what we'd do in our first dive -- which was basically just swim around for 10 minutes or so, I felt fine. I started mouth breathing and headed out with the rest of the group. I immediately felt a little anxious because we seemed to be moving fast toward deeper water than we'd been in before and I wasn't yet completely adjusted to the simple fact that I had to just breathe in and out, in and out through my mouth. But I was breathing and things were fine. We stopped at the edge of the cement before we proceeded to the deeper parts with the natural bottom and I surfaced -- a few things were already bothering me -- 1) my ears hadn't equalized 2) I don't think I'd completely adjusted to the mouth breathing and 3) I couldn't seem to hover.

It appeared that everyone else was able to be upright when they wanted and then be on their belly the correct distance from the bottom seconds later...I wasn't doing it right because that wasn't the case with me. I surfaced and Lisa, our great dive master, told me not to worry. I could stay upright or be belly down as I wanted. All I needed to worry about was being comfortable...OK, I can do that...And we descended again just as the dive group headed out into deeper water.

I dragged along the bottom, kicking up silt and most certainly disturbing the plant life below me - one of the many things good divers don't do that I haven't gotten anywhere near mastering. Things weren't going great or feeling right. We all stopped and although I'd tried to hold my nose and blow, my ears wouldn't equalize. The pressure was making the headache I had before I ever entered the water much worse. I tried to equalize a couple more times...I tried swallowing -- in the pool at a mere 10 or 12 feet swallowing had been a pretty effective way for me to equalize... But things just weren't working. When it came around to the first time for me to give the OK sign...I just couldn't...I mean, I could put my forefinger to my thumb and give the signal...but frankly, OK, was not what I was feeling.

I surfaced. I immediately felt stupid and anxious...and most of all like my ear drums were bursting. Lisa and Keith, our dive instructor, both came up with me. I am not at this point even sure what I told them. I know I said my ears were bothering me because Keith asked if I were congested or had a head cold. I said no...I don't think so...He told me to try again to equalize. I know my eyes were full of tears at this point. He asked me what else was wrong and I told him I felt too out of control -- Important point...If he was someone who knew me -- or if you are reading this and know me well -- you know that I might have a tiny little problem with control issues.

Had he known me well...He'd have looked at me right there and said something about my control issues OR he'd have realized we were done...I'm not happy unless I'm in control or at least have some delusion/illusion of being in control. Flying was an issue for me for years before I finally took an online fear of flying course which addressed my control issues and taught me a handy dandy set of strategies for dealing with these issues on each and every flight I take. If you have or if you ever, fly with me, you might notice a certain very strict set of activities which I engage in. I won't go through explaining the whole routine, but suffice it to say I haven't set foot on an airplane in the last 9 years that I haven't placed my hand on the outside of the cabin when entering and made direct sustained eye contact with at least one member of the flight crew before taking my seat...

I had no strategies for dealing with control issues as they related to the dive problems...I felt like I couldn't keep my position in the water, I felt like I was doing lots of stuff wrong, and mostly I felt like my eardrums might burst. Lisa and Keith both made valiant attempts to talk me down. I think by the time my eyes were full of tears I should have been able to realize that I failed and that this wasn't going to happen, but I kept thinking I could take another deep breath, equalize my ears and possibly not look like a fool when I joined the dive group and finished my dive training.

I'm not sure how long we were at the surface when Keith looked at me and said he couldn't keep the rest of the dive group waiting any longer...Was I comfortable? Could I do it?...

I then uttered four words that made me sick, sad, defeated, angry, and miserable all at the same time... I CAN'T DO IT...

I can't do it...These are not words that I ever want to say. I was at once in four little words admitting 1) I was a failure at this and 2)I was quitting.

Again, if you know me at all, you probably know I'm not big on quitting. And failure -- well, let's just say I cried when I got an 89 on a paper I wrote once in a graduate course at WBU. I'm not big on failure. I'm not big on quitting. So, needless to say I wasn't a BIG fan of my own yesterday afternoon.

Poor Lisa was left to get me from the dive buoy to the side and out of my gear. She tried everything she could think of to make me feel better. I feel bad that she had to do that. I know that at that point all I really wanted to do was get out of the water, get all my gear off, get into a bathroom stall -- or any other place I could be isolated -- and just cry.

And that's what I did. I am not proud of that. And I sure as hell don't want your pity. What I do hope you realize from this particular entry in the travel blog is that as I promised, I am going to be honest. It won't always be pretty. I won't always seem strong or happy or like the grand adventurer that I'm trying to be...BUT I will be able to know at the end of all this travel blogging that I told you the truth. And despite what I've been told a time or two the truth absolutely does matter.

Anyway...I spent the afternoon thinking one of many thoughts over and over and over again...I failed. I can't believe I can't finish this. I wonder if I can sell all my dive gear back to the dive shop. I wish my head would stop hurting. I wonder where the keys to the suburban are. I failed at this. I hate this crap. I wish I could call my mommy and daddy and have them come pick me up and take me home... (YES, I am 37 years old and still that much of a baby. When something goes wrong, I know that having my mommy and daddy take care of it will always always cross my mind. While this is probably not a great thing to admit about myself, it should tell you how wonderful, loving, and dependable my parents have been throughout my entire life and that when I think of someone who might rescue me...when I think who my hero would be...it's definitely my mom and dad)...And no, I wouldn't have actually called them. But what I actually was going to do wasn't what was running through my mind. My internal monologue was me sorting through every possible thing that might in some way help me look at what had happened and find a way to move through it and past it. My thoughts continued to run along those lines for a couple of hours. I honestly don't know how long it was. Time is rarely - and certainly wasn't then - a concrete concept in my mind. I moved away from the pool area so that I could stop seeing snorkels and scuba tanks surfacing reminding of what I couldn't do. I moved out under a tree near the edge of the aqueduct that leaves the park and carries water for many many miles. I watched fish and let thoughts swim around in my head. My head still hurt and more than anything I wanted the day to be over. I knew that I didn't want to face the rest of the dive group, but I'd eventually have to. I was sad, defeated, angry at myself, embarrassed, tired, hurting, hot and just feeling like the day sucked.

When the rest of the dive group got out, I got the suburban keys from Robert and made myself scarce. I drove around and around the parking lot waiting for he, Kristie and Kelsey to come out. Lisa ended up coming with them. She was staying at our motel and was catching a ride with us. It was a quiet drive back to the motel and I feel bad about that. We should have been discussing how fun and exciting it was for Kelsey and what she saw. I'm sure from my demeanor that they all thought any word to me about diving might send me over the edge.

We had dinner at a good Mexican food restaurant in Balmorhea. And everyone gathered back on the back patio of the Cactus Motel to drink and socialize after dinner. It was a nice evening. At some point Kelsey and I went for a walk through the little park that runs along the aqueduct and that is the frontage of the entirety of Balmorhea. It was nice.

I was starting to see Balmorhea differently. It was nice. It's small and remote and very plain, but it's nice. In some ways it reminded me of the area outside of Ruidoso where the mountains just start to come in to sight, where somehow the air changes and the cares start to lift off your shoulders as the breezes off the mountains somehow settle your soul.

We went to bed early (11 or so, which is early for me.) I fell asleep a few hours later. I didn't sleep well because as sweet as my beautiful niece Kelsey is awake, she is one big bed and cover hog when she's sleeping.

After waking up a lot, and fighting Kelsey for covers more than once, it was time for them to leave to go dive. I started feeling like I might cry when they were getting ready to leave. I should have been going out to finish my dive certification, I would have been if I weren't a quitter... But the thought passed and I remembered that my plan was to go out with my camera in hand and walk around Balmorhea while they dove and try to somehow catch the tranquility of the quaint little place on film and also absorb some of the quiet peacefulness into my soul.

This was my first trip on the Queen's Travel Tour '09. Something had already gone wrong. I figured it was important to store away some peace and calm and solitude so that I could pack it in my bags and pull it out as I needed it on the rest of this journey.

I had no desire to sleep late (I know, crazy, huh?) so I got up and wandered. I wandered all over Balmorhea. I watched wild turkeys cross a road as the sun rose in the sky. I walked down a dirt road on the edge of town and noticed how it seemed to disappear beneath a windmill that sat at the base of the mountain foothills. I listened to the water cascade down a rock ledge and through the spokes of a paddle wheel. I sat on a big tree that had fallen across the aqueduct at some point, but despite having fallen it continued to grow and provide a great flat place to just sit and listen and relax. And so I spent my morning taking photos, trying to capture what it was about Balmorhea -- that despite it being the first place on my travel tour that I'd failed to accomplish what I'd planned and that I'd totally missed the mark -- that made me really happy to be there and to really love that place.

Soon enough...or really maybe all too soon...I got a text that they were headed back from the dive site. I sat a little longer dangling my feet over the aqueduct and letting the breeze blow my cares away. I sat and pulled me knees up to my chest and rested my head there and listened. The sound of running water and rustling leaves was all I heard. I heard my thoughts from the day before for a few seconds too....all the thoughts of failure and disappointment, sadness and anger, embarrassment and desperation... and then somehow I just looked down into the water that runs through Balmorhea in the aqueduct at a rate of something like 26 million gallons a day and decided to let the negative aspects of the first leg of my travels be washed away and to hold on to the moments that shone like the sun on the water as I turned to leave.

I don't know if I'll finish my dive certification. I know it won't be in the next month if I do because I have other journeys awaiting. But I do know that I will look back at the first leg of this travel tour and realize that if I face my bitter disappointments and look beyond them that I can find sweet contentment in moments I could not have ever planned.