Be The Apex of Change in Your Life
- Mar 6
- 4 min read
By S.E. Tschritter
It was a gag—a running joke that had lasted nearly two decades. And the danger never occurred to us. For one week every summer, my dad’s side of the family gathers at a cabin resort on a lake in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.
Evergreens bordered the sun-kissed lake tucked into the Northwoods. My cousin plunged into the water from the shore in her fluorescent pink swimsuit. Water splashed and engulfed her to her waist. “Beat you to the raft!”
My feet kicked up sand, hot against my soles and I charged into the lake. Another cousin entered the lake with frizzy, brown curls in a sloppy ponytail and dunked herself. She rose to the surface, sputtering. Her ponytail resembled a thick, sleek whip that hung straight down her spine. After three strides, I dove, gliding beneath the surface and drowning out the sound of the world around me. Cool water against my face, hair floating like a mermaid’s.
A dozen of us, grade school to middle school-aged, swam out to the raft in sloppy form, a flurry of colored suits, and a swell of giggles and shouts that skidded across the water’s surface like stones. The raft was a heavy, wooden platform mounted atop four barrels and anchored on two ends. Near the ladder, the green Astro Turf surface had worn away, exposing the black fabric underneath. After several minutes of cannonballs and gangly dives, we gathered on one corner of the raft for an unspoken tradition.
My cousin’s voice rose above the chatter. “Down!” With my cousins, I curled my toes into the AstroTurf carpet and lunged forward, rocking my weight.
“Back!” I shifted my weight backward in obedience to the command. Sometimes I was the leader. No one ever argued about who led, because we shared a common goal. “Down.”
I thrust my weight forward. A hand gripped my shoulder for balance. “Back!” Water splashed over my feet, closest to the corner. Our submerged toes resulted in giddy cheers. Success fueled our enthusiasm. “Down!” We slammed our front legs down. “Back!”
Momentum increased. The angle of the raft hedged toward sixty degrees. My feet started to slip. Momentum caused the cousins behind me to topple like dominoes. We all fell into the lake in a pile, oblivious to the risk, and surfaced in a fit full of giggles while the raft mockingly rocked back to its uninterrupted state.
Twenty years later, we gathered on the same raft, our nemesis, that we’d never managed to tip. In our minds, we remained the same chicken-leg pipsqueaks of the past. In reality... well, reality was different. Half of us were moms and had the thighs and bellies to prove it. One of the anchor chains had rusted through and broken off—we learned that later. And as fate would have it, we gathered on the anchored edge. History taught us that the raft would never flip, so we knew we were safe.
We huddled together on the edge and took up more real estate than we had in the past. Taller than my cousins, I stayed toward the back of the group. Uninhibited by clouds, the sun beat down upon our darkened skin. Laughter skidded across the water’s surface toward shore as we rocked, stomping the raft down, allowing it to rise, repeating the rhythm.
With one last lunge, the cousins ahead of me toppled into the water like dominoes—bigger, heavier dominoes. My cousin Cheryl and I, the last two remaining on the raft, felt the shift when the raft tipped past the apex. We stared at each other—wide-eyed.
Cheryl shouted “Get back, get back! It’s going over,” and leapt as far as possible from the nearly vertical raft. I scrambled up toward the ladder practically over my head, scraping my knees and shins on the rough, slippery surface of the raft. I gripped the warm metal handles of the ladder, trying to shift momentum the opposite direction. For one suspended moment in time, I dangled there. I felt it tipping toward me and released my grip. I dropped into the water with a splash and popped up faster than humanly possible.
In one last-ditch effort, I squat-pressed the green wall and dove backwards into the water. Miraculously, no one was injured. Years have passed since that day, but I recall the moment often as a reminder. There are so many voices in our world that tell us which of our dreams are reachable and which ones or not. They encourage compromise and redirection. Well-meaning parents, mentors, and teachers attempt to steer us toward the safer course.
You can’t. You won’t. That’s not the way it’s done. But the ones who make it are the ones who don’t give up. I drown out these voices with a smile at the memory of tipping the raft. Anything is possible with persistence and a little momentum shift. If I’d listened to the naysayers, I would never have become an author, or finished writing my opus —The Prodigal’s Son: Crackhead to Jesus Freak. I never would have received the messages saying, “thank you! I needed this book!” And I never would have seen my name on the Amazon Best-Seller’s List.
Today, I want to be a different kind of voice for you. You can. You will. Your dreams are not too big. Dreams that are small are not dreams at all. This 2026, I want to remind you that you have what it takes—the courage, the strength, the momentum shift—to become the apex of change.
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