Why I Am No Longer Embarrassed That I Can’t Swim Very Well

Me, being really hot in Syracuse. Also, that's a pond. I didn't swim in it. That would be gross. And really, really weird.

I will admit it: I can't swim. Or, at least I would most certainly die in any dire situation. I can sort of swim a lap and then promptly have to take about a five minute break to feel like my lungs aren't going to collapse. I'm more of a doggie paddler, and even then my head staying above water is a bit iffy. I hate going under water because 1. I still have to plug my nose and 2. the water gets stuck onto my eyelashes. This may not seem like a big deal, but it's really depressing when you are swimming with your 9 year-old cousin (this was last summer) and she has to teach you how to go under water without your nose plugged…and you still almost choke on water. And the eyelash part is really annoying when you're wearing contacts and, you know, want to see?

Growing up I was best friends with a swimmer. Like…a real swimmer, the kind that goes to college for swimming and breaks a sh*t ton of records and such. If you've never experienced being the world's worst swimmer at an amazing swimmer's house…let me try to put it into words for you. Let's just say I learned to love sunning myself at a very young age.

Flashback to elementary school…I'm swimming in said friend's pool because, duh, it's hot out and I don't feel like sweating profusely from every single inch of my body. Even at that age I knew that sweating was vile and that I should avoid it at all costs. If you're on a swim team, you have swim friends. Swim friends go to each other's houses and swim. Also, most older elementary school kids can swim, aside from me. Another thing to note was that I was probably 5 foot something at this point because I was a f**king massive child, in the height sense. I wasn't morbidly obese or anything (…right mom?). The pool was about 4 feet deep or so.

Me, being super sexy again in a camouflage skirt (WHERE'S MY LOWER TORSO/UPPER THIGHS?) and rainbow bikini top. Judging by my face, I must have known how embarrassed I would be of this picture a short 8 years later. I've vowed never to share this picture…until now. ENJOY, CHUMMIES. 

I must have gotten bored of swimming, AKA walking around in the pool and splashing around trying to make it look like I was having a grand old time even though I was secretly pissed that I was a moron and couldn't swim or do cool flips under water or have a bathing suit that wasn't heinously ugly, because I decided to relax on a massive raft in the pool. Innocent enough, right? So I'm relaxing, probably daydreaming about one of the Sprouse boys or something (was Suite Life even on the air yet? The world may never know) when my life flashes before my eyes. It was about 500 times more dramatic during the moment because I had no sense of humor, was a total baby and literally cried about everything, and panicked immediately. My friend's father had decided to flip the raft because WHAT CHILD THAT AGE CAN'T SWIM? In all actuality, I probably only swallowed like…a tablespoon of water and could stand up almost immediately because, as I said, I was a whopping 5 foot something. Still, to this day, I refer to it as the time that my friend's father almost drowned me. And I mention it almost every time I see him because I'm a horrible person who grudges.

At my young age of 18, I'm not so embarrassed that I can't swim anymore. This is mostly because I almost always refuse to go into the water. I'm terrified of bodies of water that I can't see the bottom in AKA everything besides a pool and the very few feet off the shore of a beach. I don't like water sports (jetskis, tubing, the whole nine yards) and boating makes me nauseous. If I'm near a pool, there's a 120% that I'm tanning off to the side rather than getting my hair wet, which in turn makes it two distinct knots and nearly impossible to comb out. 

So in conclusion, I cannot swim and that's okay. Want to know why? Because I can do loads of other stuff, like identify a picture of Liam Payne (from One Direction) based solely on his abs and play the first 30 seconds of "i giorni" on piano (it's a six minute piece) and spend entirely too much money on things that I don't need and drive semi decently (nobody has gotten hurt yet).