Drowning

Once in high school me and some guys broke into the swimming pool. We started messing around, throwing the coach's furniture into the pool, that sort of thing. Then we all jumped in the pool and the horseplay continued.

Except me. I almost drowned. I never learned how to swim so I had no business being in a pool in the first place. While everyone else was fucking around and having fun I somehow ended up in the deep end of the pool and literally started to go under. The panic set in. I begun to fight the urge to actually drown, which of course made it more likely that I would drown. No one else noticed. It was the longest thirty seconds of my life. I somehow got to the edge and pulled myself out. Good thing too because if I had drowned, odds are my friends would've left my body there to cover their own asses. Maybe that's not fair, maybe they would've pulled me out and tried to save me, but most kids in that situation would've panicked and taken off.

Several years later I again found myself in the deep end of a pool, this time with a girlfriend who did pull me out. She probably has no recollection of this but I do. Like any good drowning victim, I fought off her attempts to drag me out of the pool. It's like being in a skid. You're supposed to turn into the skid and not slam the breaks but that is not the natural the impulse.

I really should learn how to swim, but to do that would mean giving up a resentment about it I've carried pretty much my whole life. While my three older brothers all got swimming lessons, I never did. They all learned at the Detroit Jewish Community Center. By the time I was born, my mom and dad had given up on the illusion that they were parents. And as the years went on, it just became this embarrassing thing for me. In high school, we had to take swimming. But I went to a D.C. public school and needless to say it didn't take much to fake my way through that class. Hell, maybe I blew a great lawsuit for my mom. She could've sued them after I drowned for negligence. Never mind that I broke into the pool in the first place.

I have always had this idea that if I could just learn to swim, my pain would lift, my misery would fade. It's crap, I know that. But at the same time, I'm also afraid to learn to swim because then what will I do with that rage I've carried all these years at my parents for the crappy job they did?

Now I know that anger needs to go and this may be one silly way to do it. There are classes. I would need an individual class. Hell, I can afford it. And while I don't expect this to be that breakthrough moment, it couldn't hurt. I've dragged these bags around long enough and my back isn't as strong as it used to be and the bags are only hurting me anyway.