Fear Conquering & Scuba Diving
Now that the chicks are out of the nest I’m nurturing a new side effect–fearlessness. Okay not exactly fearlessness, but I’m finding that I’m more drawn to crazy antics than I used to be. Perhaps this effect is common in empty nesters–or at least with the baby boomer ones. Were we not the VW bus driving, world-changing, stickin’ it to the man, try-anything generation? There must be some latent drive lurking beneath my ex-helicopter mommy exterior–and dammit–it’s getting my attention. So I crammed my not-so-perky butt into a wet suit, strapped 16 pounds of weight around my waist (apparently I’m very buoyant) and jumped in. And immediately FREAKED OUT.
There I was in the ocean, treading water like a madwomen, embarrassed and humbled. What happened? I aced the pre-ocean part of the lesson. In the swimming pool I was amazing–a scuba diving machine if there ever was one. I was practically one of those Discovery Channel shark chasers. My mind frantically tried to grasp where things went terribly awry…
On the boat I was excited. I even had built-in inspiration. A couple in their freaking 70s taking on a 100 foot dive with three generations of their family. My new heroes — maybe I could be one of their kids for the day. I was in awe.
We dropped anchor and the septuagenarians headed down (with their REAL children — the heartless brats) leaving us newbies behind. The strapping on of the paraphernalia got underway. Before long, I stood there with an air tank on my back (air is WAY heavier than one would think), a weight belt and an extremely binding vest with fifty bazillion tubes hanging off of it. Overwhelmed, the meaning of the tubes started to escape me. Led to the edge of the boat in flippers with little peripheral vision because of the mask I was wearing, I began to unravel. This was not cool.
