People who are drowning can swim better than I can. Yet for some unknown to mankind reason, I
decided to take a scuba diving class this semester. Go ahead call me crazy, plenty of people
already have.
The funny part is, I used to be a great swimmer. When I was a kid, my parents called me a “little
fish,” and in middle school I was put in the advanced swim class during gym and
even considered joining the diving team.
For some reason or another though, after middle school, I stopped going
in the water. I think a lot of it had to
do with my self confidence in myself and not wanting to be in a swimsuit,
because honestly I will to this day avoid any situation which involves me
having to wear a swimsuit. I don’t have
a swim suit body and I never will. Over
the years, I got rusty with my swimming.
I just didn’t think I got THAT bad.
So if I’m a horrible swimmer, why did I decide to take scuba
diving? Yes, partially because I
actually was naive enough to think that being able to breathe under water was
going to make me a good swimmer. And
yes, I didn’t think that I was going to have to be a swim team level swimmer to
take this class, but that’s not why I wanted to take the class. I wanted to take the class because I’m moving
to New Zealand in a couple of months, and I’ll be damned if I don’t get to
travel to Australia at some point while I am down that way. And diving in the great barrier reefs would
be entirely too amazing.
But here’s the thing.
I have to be able to massively swim for this class. And when half your class is made up of swim
team swimmers, the fact that you can’t even do one length of free style the
right way, makes everything intimidating.
Yes, I could work and work and work doing free swim hours to improve my
swimming, but it comes down to this: this is a class at school. I am getting credit for taking this. This
means I am also getting a letter grade, so my GPA is going to be affected by
this class.
I came home from class last night to an email from my
teacher saying that things would get better if I only worked at it. It was nothing more than a pity email. Her feeling
bad for me because she doesn’t want the only girl in the class dropping and she
knows that I obvious want certified if I am taking the class. But it was nothing more than a pity email
that implied that if I work hard, I’ll get a C in her class.
I have already put a good hundred dollars into this class,
and have a good 200 more dollars to put in this class (getting scuba certified
is expensive!) I’m paying extra to drop
my GPA? I’m pretty sure I’m paying enough for my regular classes already to
just get the same affect.
It boils down to this.
Yes I want this certification.
Yes I want to be able to go to Australia and swim the reefs. But I just don’t know if it is going to be at
all possible for me to do it. I don’t
think I am going to have the time and energy to reteach myself how to swim like
a care free 7 year old again. I don’t
think I’m ever going to be able to teach myself how to be a “little fish” in a
matter of 8 weeks on top of all my other classes and commitments.
So what if I don’t end up swimming in the great barrier reef
right? Plenty of people go there and don’t do that and it doesn’t make my trip
any less incredible right? I’m still
getting to travel the world and see amazing places that I could only dream
about going and seeing. I’m still
going to get to see different animals and organisms, even if they aren’t under
water. I had no other plans for a scuba
certification other than this trip, so nothing else in my life is really affected
by my decision to drop out of the class.
The lessons we learn in life aren’t always the ones we
expect to learn. I learned the hard way
that sometimes remembering things isn’t always as easy as remembering how to
ride a bike, and usually those are the things that we can survive our lives
without knowing. Sometimes the things we
want to learn we can’t. I have realized
one thing. I am a master at drowning,
which is something some other people can’t do.
So there. I’ve got that to keep
me going.
Side Note: I am selling some scuba equipment (unless I end up returning it) which is brand new and not opened yet. This includes, mask, snorkle, and small/medium sized fins, and mask cleaner. I'll be selling them for around $110 plus shipping if they need shipped.
