Why am I doing this?

originally published April 24, 2017

As my lessons have begun, I’ve oft been asked “what got you into diving?” Dating a scuba diver is the obvious answer but there’s more to it than that. The more complex answer is… I don’t want to live a life in fear. Take a little walk into the past with me.

1982: The year my mother turned 50, the age I am now. Remember how old 50 seemed when you were a teenager? I was 16 when mom turned 50. I was youthful, immortal, courageous. This may sound harsh but...I don't want to be like my mother. My mother never properly learned to swim. She is afraid of the ocean and the deep end of the pool. When she was a teen growing up in New York, going to Coney Island was all the rage and, one day at the shore, an errant wave knocked her down and pulled her under. She never went past her knees in the ocean ever again. She’ll only go up to her waist in the pool.

She doesn't eat popcorn. Why? Because she once got a kernel stuck in her throat and thought she was going to choke. She's never eaten popcorn since. 70 years and she has never. Eaten. Popcorn. All because of one bad experience. My childhood was filled with a litany of "you can't do that, you'll get hurt, it's too dangerous, girls can’t do that.”

When I was starting middle school I was going to be in band. I wanted to play the drums, it was what I was born to do. I’m sure you can guess how that turned out. Yeah, I had to pick flute because “girls don’t play drums.” When I was 17, I decided to take a shot in the dark and join a local drum and bugle corps. I showed up at their rehearsal, I knew no one and very little about what I was getting myself into. I said I wanted to join the drumline and the staff all looked at me like I was crazy. But, fate was on my side. One of the cymbal players had quit the day before. A spot was open. They threw me into the deep end and… I swam. Two weeks later I was part of a convoy of buses and trucks loaded with 135 strangers, touring the country competing against other drum corps. I did that for four years, becoming the first female bass drummer that this particular corps had ever had.

Girls can’t? Fuck that noise.

But, back to mom. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother but she has lived her entire life not wanting to try anything because she was afraid. Maybe it’s because she grew up in a different world than I. A world of WWII and the Great Depression. Maybe I’m an asshole, but her fear of the world really irks me. I tell her I’m going kayaking and she goes into a panic, certain I’ll drown. You can bet I haven’t told her I’m learning to dive.

Why do I want to scuba dive (and take solo road trips and kayak and SUP and go to punk band concerts and dance and sing and go ziplining)? Because I don’t want to live a life in fear.