It's hard to come clean about fears.
This morning my swim instructor asked me if I wanted to have a little fun with some distance swimming using only my fins with a freestyle stroke (the only thing I can do now). I glanced over at the deep end of the pool, six feet of water. If I stopped midway, my feet wouldn't be able to touch the bottom of the pool. And I'd flail.
At least that's the vision in my head. So I 'fessed up.
"I'm scared of swimming in the deep end. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't finish the lap."
My instructor has a great smile and he uses it during our lessons. It's always reassuring. So he responded with, yes, a smile and told me that I have everything I need to stay afloat: "Just kick." He had a wetsuit on underneath his clothes and took off his pants and jacket, "just in case" he had to jump in to rescue me.
I pushed off and made my way to the other end of the pool. With a quarter of lane left to swim, my inner scaredy-cat reared its head and I started to swim faster trying to get to the wall. He, of course, noticed.
He handed me a "water noodle" and and made me float away from the wall, kicking my fins underwater simply to get used to the feel of by body "standing" in water. He could read the fear on my face.
"I think we need to do the rest of your lessons in the deep end," he said.
But for today, I swam back to my safe depth with no problems. We spent the rest of class working on drills to teach me to feel comfortable in any depth of water, in any situation.
And my biggest problem? Focusing on breathing. Swimming. He said I needed to think of anything and everything besides breathing and swimming.
I need a swimming muse.
The weight of my "deep end" fear is off my shoulders and I share this here because I received so many notes from readers telling me they couldn't swim and would love to take lessons...but are scared. You're not too old. You're not silly. You'll understand why why folks like Bloggynoodle are watergals. And you'll never regret diving in.
