Swimming

I am following the P* sisters' latest trend of blogging about swimming! :) It must be summer! :)

I am so excited because I am taking a swimming class at our community's recreation center! I've always been a bit jealous of my friends (Guin--if you're reading this, this is you!) who have gone to a nearby pool to exercise by swimming laps. Sure, I can swim if by "swimming" you mean treading water, but swimming laps with correct technique--now that's a different story. I could hardly put my face under water without plugging my nose! So I decided a couple months ago that if I wanted to learn the technique of freestyle and backstroke swimming, I should take a class. So I found an adult swimming lessons course offered in the community and signed up for it!

The month between signing up and the first day of class, I really looked forward to it!...And then the first day of class came. I drove to the rec center and started feeling really nervous. I thought, "What am I doing? Little kids take swimming lessons! Adults do not take swimming lessons!" It didn't help that when I walked into the room with the pool, there was a whole bunch of little kids' swimming lessons going on. The only adults in sight were parents watching their kids, the swimming instructors, and the already adept adult swimmers speeding their way along the marked-off lanes for lap swimming. Now I didn't just feel nervous, but quite embarrassed as well. "Please don't let there be anyone here I know!" I thought.

Needless to say, I was very grateful when another girl approached me and asked me if I was here for the lesson, and freely confessed her nervousness as well. It's much easier to feel embarrassed with another person than to feel all alone in your embarrassment.

But the first lesson, and the three lessons since, have turned out very well, and the feelings of nervousness and embarrassment have gone away. The pool is cleared out for just our lesson, thank goodness, and my teacher is great. She's real nice and perky and is very good at teaching. I really enjoy it and look forward to the last four lessons of the course. Not to mention a whole lifetime of swimming to stay fit! :)

There's something so enriching about learning something new. It gives you something to look forward to, to work towards. It fights off feelings of monotony or depression. One of my good friends Bri just went through a really hard break-up, and she says taking piano lessons has helped her keep busy, cope, and move on. My mom is also a great example to me of learning new skills--she has been taking French lessons and a tap class for the past year or so. She has taught me the joy of life-long learning. I want to be just like my mom when I grow up!