Today, I went swimming again.  I know this is not a shock.  This was the fifth day in a row, and I once again did my 25 laps.  Sweetie drove us to work today (we work at the same place), and he waited for the 25 minutes or so that it took me to get in my swim.  The weather is unbelievably hot, but the pool is still cool and relaxing.  I could have stayed for hours.

It’s so nice to go there after work and get all of the work stuff out of my head.  Everything just kind of melts into the water and goes away, so I don’t have to worry about it after I go to the pool and do my laps.  It’s my thing.  Some people want to work out, play sports, or just watch TV, but none of those does for me what the pool does.

I used to work out, walking on the treadmill or crosstrainer, and then getting in the pool.  Since I’ve been in law school, I haven’t really had time to do all of that.  I kind of fell off the exercise wagon, honestly.  I have seen a lot of law school students gain a huge amount of weight while in school.  There just isn’t a lot of free time, and if you don’t keep up with it, you won’t be able to keep it off.  Some people have great metabolism, and that helps, but nothing will help if you just sit in class or the library and eat.

Anyway, my thing is swimming.  It wasn’t always, as you’ve probably read in my previous post.  But, about 6 years ago, it was really bad.

I was out on a boat in a local lake.  We were with Sweetie’s family, and it was before we were married.  We got on one of those inner tube things that you pull behind the boat, and even though I knew better, neither of us was wearing a life jacket.  I know.  Stupid.

So, they were pulling us along, and we both ended up falling off.  I held on longer than I should have, and I went all the way under the water somehow, tube and all.  I took in quite a bit of water, and came up choking.  It scared me really bad.  I am a good swimmer, but not a strong swimmer.  I like swimming in the pool, and when I’m somewhere else, I like a floating device, just to make sure I don’ t tire out.   That’s why I like my uncle’s pool so much, since it’s only 4 feet deep.

So, when I came up, choking and everything, I thought I was going to drown.  It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced.  I’ve never talked about it, because it was such a stupid thing to do.  But, because of those horrid swimming lessons at which I was finally successful, I survived.

I heard a voice in my head saying, “Float on your back.”  I immediately turned over, and was surprised to see that not only did I float on pretty rough water, but I also was able to breathe a lot better than when the pressure was on my chest with me floating feet down.  It worked!  I survived because of a good swimming teacher, and I don’t even know which one taught me that.

I have done one other stupid thing in the water since then, when we owned our boat.  I jumped out to get a hat.  A hat, of all things, really.  The water was a whole lot rougher than I thought it was, and because we had a party barge, there was absolutely nothing to grab onto to try to climb back in the boat.  I sat there, yelling as loudly as I could that I needed something to help me get back in.  Everyone on the boat sat there, just looking at me.  I was furious because here I was, in the water, about to go under, while it seemed that no one even “got” what the issue was.  Finally, someone threw me a floatie, and I was fine.  But, it was another close call.

We had our boat for about three years.  I liked it when we had it, but I had such horrid dreams about drowning that I just about couldn’t go back out on it again.  We ended up selling it last year, mainly because we never used it.  I’m sure part of the reason that we didn’t was because I was having bad dreams and didn’t want to go out on it.

What’s funny is that I’m okay on boats in the ocean.  I’ve only been scared on one of those one time, and it was a tender going from the cruise ship to the shore, fairly overloaded.  I hate tendering.  I will avoid going to shore if I know they are tendering.

So, as you can see, I have some fear of the water, but I’ve overcome some of it.  I love to swim laps.  I consider this a victory, at least.  My eight-year old self would never have done even that.