Feeling the fear and plunging in
When I was eight-years-old I nearly drowned.
Or at least, I thought I did,
My friend’s dad was teaching my friend and me how to swim, and after a few lessons, I was slowly but surely gaining in confidence.
But then, at the end of one of our lessons, I’d just got out of the pool to go to the changing rooms when something slammed into me from behind, sending me flying back into the water.
I panicked. I flailed about. I swallowed a load of water. I started to choke. And in that moment I truly thought I was going to die.
It turned out that my friend’s dad thought I’d reached the point where I’d be able to swim if I had to, and so he pushed me in (ah, the glory days of being a Gen X kid when, rather than helicoptering around us, catering to our every whim, our parents tried to kill us at every opportunity!)
When he realised that I was in fact sinking rather than swimming he promptly jumped in after me and fished me out, but the damage had been done and I vowed never to set foot in a swimming pool again.
In all the years since, the closest I’ve ever got has been a hot tub or jacuzzi. I’ve avoided pools like the plague and whenever I’m at the beach I never go in the sea above my knee - apart from my trip to Jamaica last year, where I ventured waist deep. But that doesn’t count because the sea was as still as a sheet of glass, and I may have imbued some Jamaican ‘herbal’ anti anxiety medication!
But this week, a lovely Parisian friend invited me to come for a swim in the pool in her apartment building.
I’m not sure if it’s this solo travel malarkey making me all braver than usual but I instantly said yes, explaining to her that I couldn’t swim but I’d love to have a splash about.
So, on Thursday I found myself tentatively making my way across the wet tiled floor of an indoor pool, wondering what on earth I’d got myself into.
However, I was hugely relieved by two things: One, this was a pool with no deep end, so the water would never be higher than my chest, and two, there was no-one else there apart from my friend and me, so I had no reason to feel embarrassed for being a grown-arse woman in need of a rubber ring!
My friend passed me a float board and I gingerly lowered myself into the water.
And that’s when something so magical happened it felt nothing short of a miracle.
I held the board out in front of me in the water and kicked off with my legs and instead of floundering or panicking, I felt the sweetest sensation of coming home.
My body felt so at ease in the water I felt like a fish (or maybe a mermaid would be more poetic…) Either way, it was a truly joyous feeling.
And this feeling deepened as I realised that the more I relaxed and let go, the easier it was to float.
It felt like a perfect analogy for life: What you resist persists, so you need to go with the flow, or the float, or whatever, you get the gist…
It blew my mind that this thing I’d been so terrified of for years felt as natural to me as breathing.
As soon as a I have a long term base again I’m going to get myself some swimming lessons, I vowed to myself as I made my way up and down and up and down the pool. I can’t believe I’ve been telling myself that I’m afraid of something that it turns out I love!
And this brings me to the point of this week’s Wonderstruck - the nugget of wisdom at the heart of the tale.
How many other things am I / are you / are we telling ourselves we can’t possibly do because we’re too afraid, and so we don’t even try?
What if - god forbid - our inner voice of fear can sometimes be an unreliable narrator?
How much potential joy could we be missing out on?
I’d love to hear from you on this one in the comments or a reply.
Is there something you told yourself you were afraid of but then discovered you loved?
Or is there a fear you still have that you could try to overcome?
I hope my little tale has inspired you to challenge your own inner voice, because life is far too short and precious to waste any time frozen by fear.
Until next week,
Bonne jounree!
Siobhan