Diving In

After a brief respite to catch my breath and calm what's left of my nerves, I've decided to take my next (literal) plunge: swimming lessons! 

Yes, it's true, this 31-year-old cannot swim, not even a single lap. I can't doggy paddle, I can't stick my face underwater, and God only knows if I can float. And it's not just that I can't...it's that I'm afraid to try. (There it is again, my old nemesis, fear, dropping in to hamper my enjoyment of life.) 

In some ways, I suppose it's natural. I wish, of course, that I'd learned to swim at a very young age, as most people do, when I was far less neurotic and self-conscious than I am now. Because that fear doesn't go away. It builds up on the heels of each bad water experience (flailing in the deep end, being embarrassingly singled out as the lone non-swimmer in high-school gym classes, diving into a pool and having my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth flooded with water, and so on and so forth), eventually taking on a life of its own that has kept me away from pools and other bodies of water. (You can bet I stayed safely along the Pacific Ocean shore during my 2005 trip to Ft. Lauderdale.)

The inspiration to finally tackle this fear is twofold:

1. It's a continuation of this year's personal quest to better myself, to conquer fear, and do things I never dreamed possible. I've spent far too much time over the years lamenting my inability to swim and feeling excluded from something that so many other people seem to enjoy.
2. Spending nearly a week in my sister's pool (while anxiously clutching an inflatable inner tube) and watching my super-swimmer nephew gleefully dive in approximately 100 times a day is sufficient motivation for me to  join the party next summer, hopefully impressing them with my newly-learned swimming skillz.

Next summer's mission: to cast off the inflatables and swim from end to end of the pool!