Four Little Monkeys

I clearly remember my first day of class. I remember wondering if I would I know anybody there. I remember standing with a group of students, some of whom looked as nervous as I felt. I wondered if my teacher would be a boy or a girl. Yes, I remember it like it was yesterday.

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Um, that's because it was yesterday - I started swimming lessons last night.

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I'm afraid I'm abusing the "freedom from the 'self-portrait' guidelines" in Lelly's SPT challenge this week. I did "take the time to find those old photos" and as I looked through my old pictures, it wasn't a school picture that jumped out at me, it was this one:

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I'm the one in the pigtails and the bikini (shocking!) and I've never really passed this level of comfort in a pool. I failed nearly every swimming lesson I took up until the age of 9, and then my parents stopped putting me in lessons altogether. I enjoy water sports like water skiing with the security of a life jacket around me, but I'm not a swimmer. I have happily spent the last 14 years in the baby pool, letting my children graduate up to the big pool in turn while I stayed behind with the next baby. That's not working for me anymore because Chloe learned how to swim this summer, and really, it hasn't been working for me for a long time. The fact that I can't really swim holds me back from certain opportunities for fun and recreation, and I'm tired of it. So for the next 14 weeks every Monday night I'm taking a swimming lesson.

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I told one of my friends on Saturday night that I was starting swimming lessons this week. She asked me why and I told her because I can't swim. My answer caught her off guard and it really hit her funny bone, and we both had a good laugh. She didn't know I'm not a swimmer, so when she asked my why I was going to take swimming lessons she thought I was going to say something like 'because swimming is terrific exercise'. Well, it is. My lesson really took it out of me.

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As far as last night goes, everything I said at the beginning of this post was true. I really did feel like a kid on her first day of school. There were 20 people standing with me on the deck next to the pool - way more people taking adult lessons than I thought there would be. When the teachers (both are boys, my teacher's name is Jon) came to divide us into two classes they said, "If you can't swim more than half a length come in level 1, if you can swim a length or more, go in the level 2-3 split." Well, I had signed up for level 2 based on the description in the program guide, but suddenly I felt really insecure with that decision, and several of the women around me were second guessing themselves, also. Ultimately 12 women entered level 1, all the men entered the 2-3 split level, and one other woman and I entered the 2-3 split. I hadn't tried to swim a length at the YMCA ever, but something inside of me decided I'd have to be drowning in the middle of the pool and rescued by my teacher before I'd go in level 1.

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So once we were in our classes, my teacher asked us to each swim a length to assess where we were at. I wasn't crazy about swimming with other people watching me, but what did I think was going to happen at a swimming lesson? My real problem was that I was barely or maybe not even a level 2 adult swimmer, and I'd been lumped in a class with level 3 swimmers (who are just there to learn how to swim faster and get tips for races), and I didn't know if I'd be the only weak swimmer or what. I sucked it up and swam my length. That went alright, but then swimming another length to get back to the teacher was rough. When I got back to my starting point I looked around and saw we'd been joined by one more class member, someone in my social circle, in fact someone who had been at the wake on Saturday night. Remember my friend who thought my taking swimming lessons was funny? She is going to think that having this guy (a high level-3 swimmer) in my class is hilarious!

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