First We Breathe

At the pool today I jumped off the diving board. At the end of the board I mused to myself, I can’t even remember the last time I did this.

Because it hasn’t been a thing for me. Leaping into a deep pool. In fact, diving or jumping off the diving board was my least favorite part of swim lessons growing up. Then, time went on and all I remembered as I told my boys I was going to jump, was that I loved swimming. I loved the water. I was once a fish.

At the end of the board I shrugged and jumped before fear could step in – I also jumped before taking a breath.

Down under I struggled a second, maybe two. How does this go? The force of the water pressing against as I reached for the surface. I was too busy trying to prove something; trying to shove fear aside. I forgot to breathe.

After my jump my oldest found a desire to take a turn down the slide that also dumped into the deep pool. I knew he’d been observing the long slide at the other end of the pool but when his eyes settled on the short slide next to the diving board he started to muster courage.

I like to think my jump spurred him ahead to take his own leap, but my oldest does things when he has made up his mind to do them.

My mother fear stepped in as I watched him wait at the top of the slide. I said nothing as he turned to head back down the stairs.

“Maybe not,” he said.

But he stopped on the third stair and turned around. At the top of the slide again his seven year old brother shouted.

“Don’t do it, too deep.”

The seven year old was calm in his words, almost lazy in his attempt to deter his brother from going down the water slide.

But it made my oldest pause.

“Don’t do it?”

I waited with the four year old beside the end of the slide. I hoped the oldest would go down but I was nervous. How would he respond to the end of the slide? My oldest can swim fine, but he also isn’t always comfortable in water. How far down would the fall push him? Would he sputter and gasp his way up?

I waited. We waited. A second. Two seconds. Five. I glanced up at the top but there was no movement either forward or back.

Then, we heard his body sliding down the tunnel, watched as he flew out of the slide and splashed into the pool beside us. He rose within seconds and swam to the stairs.

“That was awesome!”

It was the first of many runs down the slide for my oldest. He asked me to take a video as well.

Perhaps he learned by watching me, perhaps not, but I know he took what I did and improved upon it.

He took a breathe – and that made all the difference.