It's official and I am announcing it the whole wide world.
I can float. Finally.
Today is important and it will stay etched in the aqua tinted recesses of my brain. A sense of accomplishment and a really big one if you ask me since I never had the opportunity to learn how to swim or simply been afraid. I could have gone on, the misery of not overcoming this fear and instead made excuses for lacking the gumption and simply blame my parents for not taking any interest in my extra curricular activities. Or been miserable whenever I was tin an exotic paradise where surfers and bikini clad women made me feel like a ninkompoop. OR worse faced the end of my life if ever caught in a flood.
However, I don't want to find myself in any of these scenarios and so it's been pretty much sink or swim attitude that's taken over.
It paid off.
It didn't happen easily though. Between several half baked attempts at gliding from one end of the pool to another, forcing myself to breathe under water and finally letting go, there's been the sense of absolute misery for wanting to chicken out yet again. I did this when I was 14 years old and I think growing older beyond 25 gives you a checklist of things you want to feel proud of. Being lousy in water amongst a family of swimmers ( and mind you my parents swim in the sea, lakes and ponds. Pools weren't even a luxury to them) isn't what I wish to be stuck with when I am 30.
Subconsciously though, this push to learn swimming began when I struck up a seemingly perfect and too good to be true relationship earlier last year. I realized what great joy it would be to be able to swim next to this person. Our little plans of traveling..maybe Goa first, the beach and the sea, that talk must have done something.
Perhaps distance does change equations. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be.
But hey! I am on my way to finally enjoy nature's liquified bounty. With or without a companion.
By the way, this was my third swimming lesson and my instructor has turned out to be really patient so far. However, I have a friend and stranger to thank much more than anyone else for getting ahead.
All that I could think of in those 3 hours in the pool today, kicking , floating and enjoying every minute of my new found skills, was the big lake in Ma's village and wanting to go swimming with her and Baba.
Pardon this abrupt jump ahead, but Day 2 was really a lot of paddling around and getting the kicks right. I also spent 2 extra hours by myself teaching myself to stay under water longer. In comparison, today is just more exciting to write about :)
Next class will undoubtedly be more exciting, if I manage to get the stroke right
Glub, glub. More updates coming up
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