I’m finally taking swimming lessons this summer. For years, I would have told you I could swim. After all, I swam as a kid. During the summers, I would walk with my sister and some of the kids in my neighborhood to Roosevelt Park and go swimming. As a child, I never took swimming lessons; I just jumped into the pool. I swam in the pool's deep end and didn’t give it a second thought.
Now, in my sixties, I’m afraid to lie backward and float in four feet of water. OMG…don’t even think about floating facing the water. I must remind myself not to panic when floating because all I have to do is stand up!
Learning how to swim in my sixties will be a slow process because that fearlessness of youth is long gone. It has been replaced with an irrational fear I’m determined to conquer.
In these last dog days of summer, this old lady will be splashing around in four feet of water, trying to suppress my fear of drowning in water that I only need to stand up in to be safe.
At this time in my life, I’m determined to do everything I want to do while I still can. No, I will not be jumping out of planes, ziplining, or climbing cliffs, but I will do the things that I once enjoyed. Teaching an old dog a new trick may not be easy, but it isn’t impossible.
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