the only thing worse
than bad memories
is no memories at all..
[dismemberment plan]
1.15.2006
Swimming in Fat.
I took swim classes at the YMCA when I was about 7 years old.
At 7, I was an awkward, shy, fat child. Being fat put both me and my mom in a constant state of distress throughout my childhood. I remember when I bent down to tie my shoes, I could hardly breathe. My mom used to pinch my flowing rolls of fat on my stomach and thighs -- pinch them HARD -- and say out loud, "What a waste. What a waste..."
I think she was surprised at how deep these experiences cut into my mind and my self image. I refused to go to pool parties for years because I didn't want anyone to look at me in a swimsuit. It didn't help that my swimsuit was black with bright neon green stripes and a frilly attached skirt.
Unfortunately, I think my shyness and hatred of my body being revealed in a bathing suit was taken as an inability to swim. Thus, at age 7, chubby, sad, and self-loathing, I found myself in a YMCA pool wearing aforementioned neon bumblebee spandex suit, practicing scissor kicks and coughing up snotty breaths in the deep end of the pool -- horrified, terrified, disgusted.
This did nothing to help the way I felt about my chubby rolls all over my body. I was the fattest, oldest kid in the Guppies class. I was surrounded by slender first-graders who cut through the water like sardines. I had so much trouble swimming on my back, that my exasperated instructor had to grab me by my swimming belt and drag me to the end of the pool while I thrashed my limbs wildly like a turtle lying helplessly on its shell, unable to turn itself back on its feet.
On the diving board, my fat legs trembled, and I feared for my life. I could see the small tiles on the floor 10 feet below the surface, and I considered that to be my grave. I could just feel the bubbles and water rushing into my nose, my mouth, my eyes, and my ears -- rendering me blind, breathless, suffocating, unable to scream for help.
I always thought I would never make it back up to the surface again.
It was so strange to me that these tiny water nymphs that were my classmates were so trusting that they would live through the diving board experience. How did they know they wouldn't perish beneath the cold, chlorine waves?
It goes without saying that I failed the swim course. My "report card" came back saying that I would have to repeat the same level once more -- I was yet a Guppy. If I returned the next session, I would without a doubt be the oldest Guppy, by an even greater margin this time.
The years went on, and I got by on the family trips to the beach and the eventual pool parties by relying on the wild flailing of my limbs that I had learned as a Guppy. Somehow, I survived these ordeals.
And at pool parties, when my friends and I played "Shark," an underwater version of "Tag," I would always end up being "it," unable to venture out to the deep end with much confidence, unable to catch my slim, buoyant friends to "tag" them as the Shark. So I found myself many times idly swimming back and forth by myself in the shallow end, a lonely shark with hidden tears in my eyes, as the more skilled swimmers laughed and splashed in the deep that seemed to be a mile away.
This feeling continues in me to this very day, beyond swimming.
It always seemed to me that somehow, I'd missed something along the way -- like a secret that everyone else seemed to know but me. How was it that I was barely making it day-to-day, struggling, crying, and uncertain about my future -- while everyone else was having fun, laughing, and enjoying life? Was there a meeting that I'd missed where we learned about living life? Had I even been invited to that meeting in the first place?
How did this happen? Did I get lost along the way, or have I been on the wrong road to begin with? How does everyone else know what to do with their lives, and I am just scraping by, trying to keep my head above the water?
This morning, I went to the pool at my school's gymnasium. I took in the familiar surroundings -- the scent of chlorine, the steamy humidity of the shower rooms, the sounds of splashing water. I noted the absence of one prevalent noise that I'd become used to from YMCA lessons -- the echoing screams and squeals of delight of children swimming.
I felt ridiculous. I was wearing a swimsuit I wore in the 7th grade (that's 8 years ago), a red swimming cap, goggles, ear plugs I'd saved from a plane trip last year, a foam floatation belt, and the final accessory to absurdity -- rubber flippers on my feet.
I went over to lane 8 to slowly slip into the pool unnoticed, when the pimply lifeguard called out very loudly, "Ma'am? You can't swim there. That's for the professionals. You have to use the recreational lane." She pointed to a wide lane marked with a cone that said, "VERY SLOW."
I feel like I stood out like a circus clown at a high school dance. I flip-flopped in my flippers over to the recreational lane for idiots like myself and plunged into the shocking cold.
I felt the familiar feeling of alienation as I purveyed the other lanes. Confident splashes, limbs kicking and stroking, nobody choking for air... I looked down at myself, decked out in SCUBA gear, trying to make it to the 10 foot end without dying.
How did everyone else know how to do this but me?
I pushed these thoughts aside as I pushed off the wall, cut through the water like a dull butter knife, and swam and swam and swam -- for more than an hour. I clumsily scraped against the rope on one side and the tiled wall on the other -- again, a reminder of my childhood experiences at the YMCA -- but this time, I didn't have a swarthy Greek instructor yelling at me to kick my feet "like this" as my entire class waited glumly at the opposite end of the pool for me to finish.
I still can't breathe right in the water, I still panic when I see the tile floor ten feet below the surface, and I still can't jump off a diving board without my life flashing before my eyes. I hate the feeling of water in my ears. But even though I may get manly, big shoulders from swimming, I am determined to keep trying -- trying until I can swim like everyone else. I want to swim in the ocean without fearing death. I want to swim in a pool without breaking into the doggy paddle.
And for chrisssake, I want to graduate from being a Guppy and finally become a fucking Minnow. I may never be a Shark in my lifetime, but if I can step up from being a Guppy for once, just once, I think I can be happy with that.
[Peek-a-Foo]