Please welcome my friend Arnebya to the ole blog today! She is a writer, blogger, and speaker. In 2006 she was a recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Larry Neal Writers’ Award (Adult Fiction) and is featured in The Washington City Paper’s 2013 fiction issue. In 2012 she was named a BlogHer Voice of the Year (Op-Ed) and she was member of the 2013 DC Listen To Your Mother cast where she read this. She’s often a guest writer on multiple parenting blogs simply because she’s a parent (and sometimes funny).
Her three children love to listen to her sing Prince’s “Adore” in the car, her husband worships her, and her coworkers clap when she calls out on days with scheduled meetings. That sentence is entirely true except for the parts that aren’t. Arnebya is known for making light of everything you think is serious business (breastfeeding vs formula, natural vs medicated birth, stay at home vs work outside the home, Democrat vs Republican, Duncan Hines vs Betty Crocker! White after Labor Day!). She writes to keep from killing at What Now and Why. You can also find her being lazy on Twitter and not obnoxious enough on Facebook. I can’t swim. I’ve tried to learn. I have really tried. I took swim lessons as a child, with both of my sisters. Only one of us can swim. We practiced, repeatedly, filling the bathroom sink with water, closing our eyes, and trying to submerge our faces. We were always afraid that one of the others would push our heads under, though, so we never actually accomplished this. I tried in the bathtub, bathing suit and tight, plastic cap donned. “Stroke! Stroke!” I’d whisper to myself. Too bad my arms were too long to actually do anything besides hit the damn faucet.
In swim class, I’d kick my feet, blow bubbles, and generally do everything the instructor requested. Until it was time to go under. I’d look at the rest of them like you big dummies; the ocean kills. Sure, we were in a community center pool, not an ocean, but I was perhaps six, maybe seven. Give a kid a break. Now, 30 some odd years later, that reluctance has turned into a bonafide fear of the water.
And yes, I cannot be afraid of the water in summer. My children will not allow it.
In fact, they don’t know it. They know I can’t swim, sure, but they don’t know that I think WE ALL GON’ DIE the minute I see the water. Worse, it feels like last winter stretched on so long that once summer finally showed up my kids went crazy. Two of them talk incessantly about the pool. Let’s go to the pool. Is the pool open? Mommy. Pool! Pool. Poooooooool. I want to say yes, let’s head to the pool. But in reality, I am itching and keening in a corner like I have missed my last hit of crack. Let’s just stay home. Who wants cupcakes for dinner?
Last summer, I took the girls to a new local pool. It has a slide. I pretended to be disinterested. But here’s the thing about me: although I can’t swim, I don’t even like to be splashed when in the pool, and I am afraid that one of them will slip and drown, all lifeguards will be on break, and I will immediately forget every second of CPR training and wind up one of those women who didn’t watch her kid but then wails inconsolably when she’s told the dingo ate her baby, I secretly love the idea of huge water slides (like roller coasters minus the water). I like the way they look. I do not want to slide on them (except I would, if I could be assured I wouldn’t fly off uncontrollably, be unable to right myself, then hit my head on the bottom of the pool and die). I should write flowery greeting cards, I’m so positive-thinking!
So we’re at this pool and the middle girl wants to get on the slide. Um, ok then, have at it. Go with you? Wait, who, me? Good one. Except she was serious. And because yes, I am afraid of the slide and the water and me coming to the end of the slide into the water, I must pretend to not be afraid, because adulthood is stupid. I climb to the top of the slide. The water at the bottom is under four feet. I can so do this. Except. Well. There are all these loud little boys behind me asking me if I’m going down, when I’m going down, hey lady, are you gonna go down, we wanna go down. SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT YOUR FRIGGIN’ PIE HOLES YOU AREN’T EVEN SUPPOSED TO HAVE UNDERWEAR ON WITH YOUR TRUNKS I’M GOING JUST GIVE ME A MINUTE DAG.
I so can’t do this. I gotta get down. I look at my daughter’s face; she is so embarrassed. Her mom can’t go down the slide. And then in an instant I mumble boys are stupid, and push off. I feel absolute exhilaration, freedom, as I slide down and then whoosh! I am under water and I. Am. Drowning! My arms are flailing, there’s water in my ears, my nose, my eyes, my mouth. I am choking and I can’t see and I’m going to die. I’m on my knees and I fight the water trying to hold me under and I gather the strength to stand up, overcome! I wipe my eyes. I am alive! And every person in the pool is staring at me because the water level stops at my waist. The girl has already come down and is standing beside me, all smiles. Ha! I did it! We did it! So I do a triumphant turn toward the top of the slide and give those little boys the finger.
I’m taking my kids to the pool this weekend.
I start adult swim classes in July.
Is there anything you’re afraid to do but feel compelled to treat like you’re unafraid (especially because kids you don’t even know and attack you unnecessarily?)
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