Stuff

Learning something new at any age can be a very scary experience. But, what if it’s combined with doing the hardest thing ever at the same time? That’s what happened to me while standing on the springboard with the bright blue water below, while thinking how I would love to be in there. I’m four years old, curled pigtails dangling in my hair, knees knocking, and legs quivering while in my brand new bright pink swim suit.

New situations and experiences always make me a bit nervous. So learning to dive into the water and swim was no exception. It was an average Sunday afternoon, cool temperature, fluffy gray clouds, with hawks soaring above in Midwest Iowa skies. After getting dressed, I walked out of the locker room, and sat down on the “pink for girls” bench waiting for the instructor. While sitting there scared, and nervous, time seemed like an eternity when in all actuality it was only three minutes. She finally emerged wearing a huge white plastic flowered swim cap, with a baggy black swim suit and flip flops. While walking around the pool waving to all the parents first, then us little kids next, I thought to myself, “Ok maybe this isn’t so bad”.

We got in the pool, toes by toes, feet to feet, taking it all in, step at a time. After all the kids were in the pool, the instructor, who introduced herself as Ms. Mary, handed out dark purple foam noodles for us to float on in the shallow end. Several students must have already taken swim lessons, because a little boy named Charlie, and a brown haired little girl took their noodles and went splashing and flipping around in the water. Meanwhile, my friend Becky and I were holding onto ours tightly, trying to kick our legs like she showed us. One by one the teacher took us and pulled us around the pool. Eventually Becky got the hang of it and went swimming off towards the ropes in the deep end.

For me, things were not so easy to come by, but Ms. Mary seemed to understand, and was very patient and...