Swimming Lessons

When I was four, my mom bribed me with a Barbie doll to please-oh-please put my face in the water so my swim teacher could check the box and I could finally graduate to the next level of swim lessons. After months, I did finally do it—once in a mere two inches of water in the bathtub and from then on, only when I had to for passing swim tests.

Finally, when my mother was fairly certain my brothers and I knew the basics of swimming and at least wouldn’t drown, she unenrolled us from swimming lessons, lest she listen to our incessant complaining about them for another summer. 

Let me be clear: I was a proper Midwestern child, so of course I did learn to enjoy the water. It’s basically required; Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes, after all. Between my grandparents’ lakefront cabin and our frequent vacations to Florida beaches, my brothers and I had more opportunities than most to swim. 

But we certainly weren’t ever real swimmers, in the truest sense of the word. My dad was the one outlier I can recall with any real clarity. While he was busy launching himself into the lake with a yelp and slinking under the surface like some kind of giant, happy musky, my brothers and I were digging for flotation devices in the boathouse and strapping on our scuba masks, lest we inhale a single drop of water. We doggy paddled and, from the shore, looked like little turtles with our necks straining out of the water. 

We grew older and swam less; my brothers favored Frisbee on the beach, while I preferred floating on inner tubes among the wakes of passing speed boats.

It never occurred to me until later, how strange it was—for a family living so much of our life on the water, how content we all were to just stay on the surface. 

* * *

“You have to learn to swim, Baby…for safety.” I wanted to remind her that her very first experience in the world was being born in a tub full of water, for crying out loud. But I kept my mouth shut. 

My three-year-old looked up at me, her face frozen in that crumpled, on-the-verge-of-tears way. 

I softened my voice and knelt on the slippery tile to meet her eyes. “This is a new place with a new swim teacher. She is not going to dunk you underwater without telling you,” I said, silently cursing the well-meaning instructor who did precisely that—twice—at her first ever swim lesson the previous week. 

I opened the door to the pool and breathed in the humid, chlorinated air, taking a seat several feet away from the water’s edge. 

When it was my daughter’s turn to step deeper into the pool for the first exercise, she panicked, sobbed, and clung to her instructor’s arms so fiercely, her fingernails left behind little half moons.

As her swim class wore on, I regretted sitting so close-by, simply for the fact that my presence was making things more agonizing for everyone; my three-year-old misconstrued my proximity and periodic eye contact as a welcome invitation to come sit in my lap and avoid the water at all costs. As soon as her turn was over, she scrambled onto the pool’s edge and ran to me. Her swimsuit soaked through the front of my jeans, and her lanky arms locked in a vice around my neck. 

“Can we go home now?” her small voice quivered into my ear. She wanted me to save her from learning how to swim. And as the water from her hands dripped down my back, all I could think was: 

I know how you feel. 

* * *

In January of 2020, two months before my twenty-seventh birthday, I resolved to finally teach myself how to swim—I mean, really, swim. Maybe it was because two years of mothering had made me feel like I no longer belonged to myself. Or maybe it was because I wanted to learn to move my body in a way that didn’t feel torturous. Whatever the reason—I was committed. 

I devoured Youtube videos on freestyle technique, then bought a competition swimsuit, swim cap, and goggles from a sporting goods store. My husband caught a glimpse of me in the mirror in all my garb and tried to keep his smile casual, but I knew what he was thinking: Not gonna lie…I never saw this coming. For the next eight weeks, I felt like an absolute imposter every time I jumped into the water. 

But I didn’t quit.

At first, I could only make it halfway across the pool before running out of breath. My body instinctively panicked every time I kicked off the wall. I inhaled an embarrassing amount of water. I could not, for the life of me, get my arms and legs to work together in unison. And my neck was chronically sore from straining towards the surface to gulp down air. 

I dragged my toddler and husband to the pool on Saturday afternoons to splash next to me as I practiced: head down, body in line, slice the water, catch, pull, rotate, breathe, repeat. 

Then one day, after swimming nearly every weeknight for two straight months and working tirelessly to improve my erratic form, I looked at the clock above the pool and realized I had been swimming nonstop for nearly an hour. 

The triathlete in the next lane pulled off his goggles with a snap and leaned over the lane line: “So, what are you training for?” 

“Uhhh…just…life, I guess…” I trailed off, like an idiot.  

Two weeks later, the country shut down and all the pools closed. And just like that, my newfound skill meant nothing. I stuffed my swim cap and goggles in the back of my closet. 

Learning how to swim was pointless—I was drowning the second I stepped foot on dry land. 

* * *

“Tell me what you’re feeling right now,” our therapist says to me through the computer screen.

I stare down at the blue ball in my hands, punctured with half moons from my fingernails, and think about my three-year-old and her swim teacher’s arms.

I fidget in my seat and fight the urge to roll my eyeballs up to the ceiling. The truth is, I hate everything about this question. I hate that it sounds so quintessentially therapeutic. I hate that I know exactly what she’s doing—encouraging me to notice what is underneath the surface, what is beneath the waves of anger that have come to feel so safe and familiar. And most of all, if I’m really honest, I hate that I don’t even know how to answer her. It’s been two years of relentless pandemic life and her question has me scrambling onto the pool’s edge, just like my daughter. 

I want to tell her: The water is too deep here; I’m not ready. But I stumble over my words, instead, like someone who’s lost her balance. 

“I don’t….I mean….” I look at my husband who is also waiting for my answer with a raised eyebrow. “….can you repeat the question?” I finally reply.

The truth is, deep down I know the faster I get out of the water, the less I have to learn to swim. 

* * *

The next week, I grit my teeth, bracing for the cold, and jump back into the pool for the first time in months. 

I am not surprised that it’s still instinctual for me to fight against the water, to believe on some cellular level that I will probably drown. My first two or three laps are stilted by my insistence on exhaling carefully, on rationing my breath like some precious commodity, on trying to control every aspect of my being.

On my fourth lap, though, I begin to sink back into the rhythm of emptying my lungs completely so I can breathe in deep when I resurface. I begin to remember what it feels like to trust the water and trust myself. My body works through the familiar motions until I am blissfully lost in the present. All I can hear is my own exhaled breath bubbling through the water. All I can see is the friendly blue line running along the bottom of the pool.

There, in the water, a truth begins to settle deep into my bones: When I let myself go, sink into the unfamiliar, relinquish fear’s weighty grip, exhale completely…there is finally space for breathing in something new. 

Maybe I’ve had it wrong this whole time. Maybe plunging beneath the surface and letting myself be held by the water doesn’t mean I’ll drown. 

Maybe it means I’ll finally learn how to fly.