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.
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.
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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?
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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?)
A mom can and will do anything for her kids even if she’s scared shitless! Good for you, getting up the courage to go down that slide and to sign up for lessons; even if it took a bunch of “stupid boys” to give you that extra push.
I wanted to punch those little boys. That’s bad, right (but good that I didn’t do it?)
Good luck with the swim classes, Arnebya, you’ve got this!
Also, damn, you’re hilarious.
Thanks, Alison, and I hope so. I am petrified. I wonder if I can pay those little boys to heckle me so it feels more like I “have to” do it.
Good Luck! You will love it!
Hmmmm love when talking about swim. It’s hard to imagine (not really, because I actually WANT to swim, can almost see myself slicing through the water. But then, I see myself taking in water and coughing and drowning. See how that happens?)
Hahahaha. I’m laughing at your writing Arnebya! Not at you, ahem. I’m glad you triumphed. I’m also glad to hear you’ll be taking some swim lessons. xxoo 🙂 And really, bravo for facing a fear.
Is it weird that I can SEE myself swimming? But then I get into a pool and can’t even put my head under? MY THREE YEAR OLD PUTS HIS HEAD UNDER.
That is awesome – it feels great to conquer a fear. Hope you enjoy swim lessons!
Kim, I’m not sure I knew that enjoy and swim could be used together. I’m trying not to freak out but it’s not working.
Daddy-o can’t swim. And the silly fool went on a cruise a few years ago. I was a spaz the entire time he was gone, just thinking about it.
I don’t like going to the pool with my husband because he is so nonchalant because he CAN swim so that turns into my overbearing nervousness seeming ridiculous.
Good for you for doing it and showing those boys who is boss! I am not afraid of the water but I can swim enough to save my own life.. and I live in California, people swim all the time! I hate that I have to keep my youngest in the shallow end where I can touch as if he went into the deep end and needed help I really don’t think I could help him.
We went to the pool on Saturday afternoon. My 3 yr old wanted to go into 3 feet maybe, water came to his shoulders. CUE PALPITATIONS.
This is AWESOME. I suck at swimming. I have a horrible fear of drowning. I can tread water and swimming in a pool is fine with me, but put me in open water in the lake? I will freak the frack out. I wear a life jacket, yo.
I don’t think I’ll ever get to the point my mind’s eye sees, but I do want to at least be able to get in and not constantly think the drain is going to pull me or the kids into it. Oh yeah, there’s that fear too.
You’re so cute in that 4 foot water. 🙂 (You can do it!!)
I’m going to try, Jennie (although, admittedly, I have already looked into refund stipulations).
SO FUNNY. I’m laughing with you, of course mainly at you giving those boys the finger. So glad you went down the slide. Please live blog your swim lessons. 😉
OMG LEIGH ANN YOU WANT ME TO DIE! Although maybe I could do a few before and after photos. Hmmmm This can’t be good.
My mom never learned how to swim and she is terrified of the water. Every time I take my two anywhere near it, pool, water park, lake, beach, she is “you better keep an eye on those babies.” “Yes ma’am.” I was never afraid when I was a kid, but now that I have two littles of my own, her panic definitely feeds mine.
Jennifer, the fear I have toward the kids’ drowning is much more intense than the fear I have for myself (which was heightened by my almost drowning in the Wild Wave at Wild World before it became Six Flags. In 1984. Yeah).
This is so foreign to me because I have always LOVED the water. BUT. My mother is much like you. She loves the lake and the ocen and even to go to the pool but she is not a swimmer. And she also made sure that all of her kids were different than her and learned to swim. I really hope your lessons go well and that you learn to love the water. At least a little more than you do now…
I get a little more comfortable each time I go (if it’s quiet. If it’s too busy my death! drowning! broken necks! slips on wet pavement! goes into overdrive). In my mind I will one day have an incredible relationship with the water. I think I just need the right instructor first.