"Peggy, you need to learn to swim well enough to at LEAST save your own life some day."
Perhaps it was the way he said it, maybe it was the fact that I truly have a lot of respect for him and consider his advice to be sound and good, or I guess it could be that he's turned out to be one of the best friends I've ever had. Whatever it was, I ended up signing up for my first set of lessons in late June last year at our local YMCA and actually finished them just a couple of weeks prior to my August 4th accident.
My 45-year "boycott" of ever entering into the waters of a swimming pool came to a screeching halt last summer and when all was said and done, I was very much alive and well. My irrational childhood fear of drowning gave way to the realization that the water could indeed be a "friend" and I liked it. Surprise, surprise, surprise....I actually found that I liked it!
I came away with such a good feeling about it all that I was ready to take on the next 4 sets of lessons and would have long ago already completed them had I not broken my arm. Except for a brief respite between surgeries in December when I was able to return for one lesson, I've not been in the water since. But that is all fixing to change very soon.
Item #1 on the Miller Bucket List is to continue in my quest to learn how to swim well enough to save my own life some day and during this month of February, I intend to do just that. With the help of my swimming teacher, Laurie Carr, I'll be stepping back into the water once again. When I finish those 3 lessons and enter the kingdom of the "guppies", well, it's going to be feeling pretty good.
I would love to tell you that the next 3 lessons will be like bites from that proverbial "piece of cake", but pretty sure that's not going to be the case. When my lessons stopped in December, I had found myself in the pool's middle, the 4 foot range. Believe me, it took a lot of coaching from Laurie and courage from deep inside of me to leave the "safety net" of the shallow end of the Y's pool and even get to the middle.
But the middle of the pool is NOT where it stops for me, and I know it. Sooner or later, the inevitable is going to have to happen. I'm going to have to get in "over my head" and that day is coming soon. So, when a 5-foot tall "hydrophobic" has to finally inch her way closer to not being able to stand flat footed in the pool any longer, well we'll just see how it all turns out. Getting a little anxious just typing these words. :)
As I stop to think of it, I've been in situations that were "over my head" many times in this life but that never seemed to stop me from doing things, so I'm not sure why this would be any different. I guess the "seed of fear" was planted pretty deep within in me that summer of 1965 when I was positive that I was drowning on the very first day of swim lessons. My refusal to deal with my fear only made matters worse and the end result was that I almost never went back. What a waste that would have ended up being.
You know I'll never forget that day back in June when I went to the Y to sign up for my lessons. As nervous as I was, I dared to peek in through the window that led to the pool and saw the happiest looking group of senior citizens (and oh wow, am I EVER getting THERE fast!) doing water exercises in the deep end. The looks on their faces were not filled with terror, no one's mouth was forming the words "Help me, I'm drowning!" They were having great fun, the time of their lives.
And my friends, surely if THEY can have fun in the deep end, then so can I! :) I may NEVER be referred to as "Peggy, the fish" but it won't be for lack of my trying. Have a great evening friends~be well!
"THE DEEP"
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