If I ever drowned, I hope to look as gracious as the woman in this painting above, like a goddess falling asleep in her bed. That's a far reach because I looked like this 👇🏽 in 4ft of water earlier today.
I'm from a tribe called Ijaw and we're known to be good swimmers since most of our villages are pretty much surrounded by water. There's this common talk that when babies are born, they're thrown into the water so they know how to swim.
I hear that a lot from strangers and when they find out I'm Ijaw, they assume I know how to swim. It's very ironic because I generally do not like water. I don't like drinking water except it's cold because room temperature water could get me nauseous. I get mini panic attacks when I close my eyes in the shower and hold my breath for a short while.
Seeing how I can't handle little water, it's definitely a bad idea going into a whole pool of it. Today isn't the first time I've been in water though, the first time was in a pool. I had this funny feeling in my chest from the pressure in the water and it made me panic. Plus I had no one to teach me because the person meant to was busy doing naughty stuff with a girl underwater.
That and the next time I got in water was a terrible experience. I couldn't get over the pressure of the water weighing my chest down. Although I had someone try to teach me the second time which was in a river, I still couldn't get over that anxiety. The river also had fish in it so I was worried about that too. What if those tiny fish went full shark attack mode on me suddenly?
Today, I was able to relax in the water and the pressure thingy on my chest stopped. I could confidently walk around in the water after about 15 mins of coaching and I didn't feel like I was going to slip on the tile, hit my head and die. I proceeded to squating, holding my breath in water for 10secs although @belemo would disagree and say it was just a sec but whatever, haters gon hate.
I lay flat on the water with help of course but I guess I didn't trust anyone to actually let them leave me on my own to float. They swore there was no way I could drown in such shallow water but I wasn't having none of that. Each time I felt their hands slipping away, I thought I was gonna drown. I got little water in my nose and mouth several times but not enough to get me worried.
In my dreams, I'm such a great swimmer so I assumed I would do good if I put in actual effort in learning, I tried to paddle with my feet but it was such a hopeless attempt. It's one step at a time they say, I might try again some other day or not.
I'm just happy I'm kinda at peace in water now and I had a lot of fun today.