Breathe

We’re not supposed to breathe under water. We don’t have gills. We crawled out onto land ages ago and really are only meant to visit on top in boats or swimming. But, I’m a little bit stubborn and don’t like being told what to do, so I picked one of the most challenging activities I could think of to thumb my nose at another “should.”

I had signed up initially to take a February class and do the checkout dives near the end of that month. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite ready so I was invited to retake the class. Boy am I glad I did because I had a couple of patient instructors who firmly but kindly pushed me to be successful.

The four checkout dives occurred this past weekend–two on Saturday and two on Sunday. In order to be considered for certification, each student had to meet benchmarks and demonstrate safety skills in the open water, much as we had done in the pool. No one can explain to you what it feels like to be covered head to toe with gear–boots, wetsuit, bc unit, tank, weights hood–and then slog to the stairs leading down to the water. It’s heavy dry. It’s even heavier climbing out of the water, up the steps, and back up a tiny incline to the parking lot–the soggiest backpack ever.

On each dive we had to demonstrate skills like controlled descents and ascents, neutral buoyancy, full mask removal and replacement, stationary shared air, shared air ascent…these are the main ones I can think of, don’t worry there was a specific checklist and it got signed off on by the instructors. Scuba is a mental game. I’m still breathing. I’m still breathing. I’m breathing so I’m okay. Breathing. Just breathe. And the next thing you know, THERE’S A STARFISH! Sea cucumbers, crabs, anemones, and we even got to see the tiniest little nudibranch (looked like a fuzzy caterpiller).

I can’t tell you the number of times in this process, I thought I wanted to quit. I don’t want to do this. It’s crazy. Who would want to do this. But then I’d think, well maybe I’ll quit after class is over. Or maybe after this dive. But little successes build. They build confidence and momentum and a skillset even. So there I was on the fourth dive, swimming along with my dive buddy, giving the okay sign frequently and absorbing all the wonder of this new-to-me environment.

Once that last dive was over, I was euphoric. High even. It wasn’t just pride over achievement, although that was definitely part of it. It wasn’t just relief at being done, because I’ll be honest this was a tough road and I’m tired, and it was part of it too. But the overwhelming sense of WONDER blew me away. I got to visit another world and be out of the ugliness of this one for 29 minutes at 49 feet. Breathing steadily, holding the hand of my dive buddy, assured that my instructor had my back.

We all have to do hard things life throws at us whether we like it or not. And we do them maybe with grace, maybe loudly complaining, maybe not altogether elegantly, but we do them. Sometimes, however, we get to choose the hard thing and triumph so that it becomes a less hard thing. Then it turns into a cool thing and eventually into a fun thing.

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