13 Feet Deep

I went swimming today. In the deep end.

I feel like I’ve always been a bit late to the party. I didn’t learn to drive until I was 30. I had a car accident when I was a teenager. I wasn’t allowed to drive after that, and when I moved out and was on my own, I was too afraid to try. I took my exam and got my licence, but I never drove. I felt so dependent. On my husband, my friends, the city buses… When I finally decided that enough was enough and that I wanted to set my own schedule and not be dependent on others, I jumped in. Head first. My husband bought me a used van and I started driving it the next day.

I wonder if swimming will be like that. Once I started driving, I was so scared. For the first three or four years. I was terrified. I would get so anxious hours before I knew I had to drive that I couldn’t eat. I dreaded days I had to drive. In the winter, bad forecasts kept me up at night. There were days when I had to stop myself from pulling over and abandoning the car on the side of the road. I was so paranoid about quick yellow lights, lane changes, keeping enough distance between me and other cars.

Six years later, I can’t imagine not driving. It finally feels natural. I’ve become comfortable with my car. I’ve anthropomorphised her. Her name is Kamayo. It means “long life” in Japanese. Once in a while, while I’m driving I still get a rush of adrenaline and think “Oh my God! I’m driving!”, but it’s rare now. I can even appreciate a nice highway drive. And I know this isn’t a big deal. I know it isn’t. I see so many people driving on the roads with me. Some of you started when you were 14. Nearly everyone can do it. But for me it was a big deal. Because of fear.

I can’t figure out if we humans are naturals in the water or not. We spend our first nine months floating around in it. They say young babies have a natural ability to hold their breath for a few moments when submerged. All I know is, my relationship with water is complicated. And I am not a natural.

My cousin Jeff drowned when I was six. He was 16. I remember he was tall. He was handsome. He was a lifeguard. Fishing at a river. The current got him. There were probably factors I didn’t understand as a six year old. He probably hit his head on a rock and never had a chance. I didn’t have the ability to understand that and all I knew at six years old was that my cousin, who was a strong swimmer, drowned.

Then there was that time camping at Tall Timbers campground in Sundre. I was seven or eight years old. They had a great campground complete with an indoor pool. I was bobbing along and I guess I bobbed too far on the downward slope to the deep end and all the sudden there was no bottom. I flailed, sputtered, choked. I went under. I was panicking and I couldn’t get to the surface. A nice man scooped me out and placed me on the ledge of the pool where my parents came to console me as I coughed and cried. All I remember of swimming lessons was that I kept failing. I couldn’t keep my face in the water. Now that I’m an adult, I know that was anxiety. I didn’t know it then. I didn’t ever even really connect my cousin with the pool or with the pool being certain death; I just couldn’t put my face in the water.

Even in the face of that fear though, I’ve always been drawn to water. Maybe it’s because I’m a Cancer, if you believe in that kind of thing. Maybe it’s because I’m landlocked in Alberta. I love the beach. I love the salty taste of the ocean. I love floating in a pool. I love sailing on a catamaran. I love soaking in a hot tub. You can take my nautical-themed everything from my cold, dead hands. I love sand and anchors. I love water. So it’s hard to be terrified of something you love. I’d been snorkelling on a few vacations. Only after triple-checking how tightly my life vest was done up and atoned for my sins. In Tulum, Mexico, I was sick to my stomach on the bus ride to the snorkel trip that my sister, my husband and I had booked. Wading into the water, I almost stopped. I came so close to bowing out. But I felt like I had to push through. It was terrifying to start. It took so long for me to really believe that I could breathe through that snorkel. I was most definitely hyperventilating. But when I actually managed to see what was below me; to see a whole new world opening up before my eyes, my fear began to slowly recede. On that trip we saw tropical fish, wild sea turtles, and stingrays… Those things were worth pushing through the fear…

I loved that trip so much I got a tattoo to remember it.

Fast forward to last year. 35 years old. I don’t know what specifically spurred the notion. I was just tired of being afraid. The fear made me feel weak. I signed up for adult swimming lessons though the city. I was nervous about that too, thinking I’d be the only adult in a class full of awkward teens. Or worse; preteens. I was wrong. Everyone there had as much fear as I did, or more, and some had even less experience in the water than me. Most were recent immigrants, and a few were moms who wanted to swim with their kids, and be comfortable enough in the water that they could help them if something happened.

We started out in the shallow end. Like calf-deep shallow. Putting our faces in and blowing bubbles. “Every time your face is in the water, you should be blowing bubbles”. It was uncomfortable. I didn’t like it. It made me anxious and I hated the feeling. But something was pushing me.

Before long we could actually kick our feet while blowing bubbles. And float and blow bubbles. And even turn over! It’s been just over a year now and I passed Adult Basics 1 with flying colours. I received a conditional pass in Adult Basics 2, but I decided to retake it to be really comfortable before I moved on. I felt a strange peace at deciding to retake it. A peace I never had as a kid, while the swim instructor was explaining to my mom on report card day, why I had failed again.

Last summer we went to Antigua on vacation. Antigua is a magical place. The trip happened just after I passed my first set of swimming lessons and I didn’t want to lose the momentum I’d gained in conquering my fear. I literally jumped in head first when I booked us a diving trip. Scuba diving was terrifying and exhilarating and it was absolutely amazing to be a part of the secret world of the ocean for 60 minutes. There were moments practicing in the pool that morning and on the actual decent when I fought every urge to bolt to the surface and get back on dry land with sweet, sweet air, but I resisted. And it was incredible.

My newest tattoo is symbolic of many things. It firstly signifies the trip to Antigua. The hummingbird and bananaquit bird are two charming natives of the island. The stingray is to remember the day trip we went snorkelling with wild stingrays. The “Sink or Swim” banner on the tattoo signifies my struggle with swimming and overcoming fear but also to incorporates the exhilaration of diving (sink) and snorkelling (or swim). And the letters JJBB; my Cousin Jeff’s initials.

Swimming is 90% breathing for me. I’ve started jogging in the past few years and I can totally respect cardio and running now. But I find swimming takes even more discipline than running or biking because you can’t just breathe when you want to, or need to. It’s such a focused, methodical sport. Not to mention it’s physically strenuous. So you have to regulate your breathing but you’re also breathing hard because of the activity. I have so much respect for swimmers.

I’m still not comfortable in the water. I’m fine in the shallow end, where my brain knows I can just stand up. The deep end is where my demons lie. It’s not even that I’m thinking, “I’m going to sink to the bottom and die”. It’s just an overwhelming anxiety when I look down and see how far down the bottom is. Even though I KNOW that I can swim; I can tread water for 4 minutes, I can float on my back, I can front crawl (with extra breaths here and there, and I can turn on my back if I need to), I can back crawl like no one’s business, but I am still afraid of the deep end. But what’s scarier than the deep end for me, is the feeling of being afraid.

So even though it makes me feel anxious, I push through. Some days I swim in the shallow end to work on my technique and confidence. Sometimes I just need to focus on the fear. Today I grabbed a flutter board. I chose a lane in the deep end, against all my instincts and comfort level. 13 feet deep. I did laps back and forth, with the board outstretched in front of me, fluttering my feet, breathing to the side when I needed to. I could feel the panic building as I looked down through my goggles. I could feel my heartbeat quicken. Thoughts entered my head, “What if I just sink?  What if I can’t make it to the other side? What if I freak out?”. Mentally trying to push those thoughts away, I try to consciously think about letting out the bubbles at a regular pace, and not gasping when I do breathe so as not to hyperventilate (CO2 buildup in the body can cause feelings of anxiety). I push through the anxiety. I sit with it. I let it come to me. I accept it. I ruminate on it. And then suddenly, I realize I’m not as scared as I was when I started the swim.

So I’m hoping this swimming thing is a bit like driving. I wonder if one day in months or years I’ll look back and realize that I’m not scared anymore. Or, if I’ll always keep my cousin in the back of my mind somewhere. For now, I’ll keep pushing myself. I’ll swim with the fear until I can swim away from it.