Sink or Swim

This must be the summer for me to face my fears.  First, I faced my fear of plummeting, by jumping off the Cape May Ferry, and then today I swam without my Linus blanket (wetsuit), in open water.  I had done this one other time and was kicked in the face knocking my goggles off my face and causing my anxiety to send me into a panic.  After that I promised myself that I wouldn’t open water swim without a wetsuit.

If it were possible I would have us all squeeze into Dr. Emmett Brown’s DeLorean and go back to the year 1985.  Which by the way may have been the year “Back to the Future” took place, if so that’s just a coincidence.   I don’t want go back in time to save a clock tower, but rather to show you where my fear of the open water began.  We would end up at Penn Warner Lake, summer of 1985.

When I was only a mere five years old, my family was living out of a pop up camper down at Penn Warner Lake in Tullytown, Pennsylvania.  My father was a drunken monster that we all feared.  Most of you can’t imagine fearing much when you’re five, let alone your own father.  But, my father wasn’t nominated father of the year any year, especially not in 1985.

 In a drunken stupor, my father grabbed me and took me down to the edge of the dock.   The whole time he kept repeating that it was time for me to learn how to swim.  I can remember him repeatedly saying “its sink or swim time.”  Again, I was only five years old and though I didn’t completely understand what it was he was saying, I knew something terrible was about to happen to me. 

Once we reached the foot of the dock, my father started swinging me from my tiny wrist like a pendulum, swinging me higher and faster, all the while I’m red faced and hysterically crying out for help.  I’m assuming I was yelling for my mother, but anyone would do.  In one swoop he let go and I went flying into the dark, murky waters of the lake.  I COULD NOT SWIM!

I remember trading off and on with the darkness of the water and the bright, blue skies as I fought to keep my head above the water.  The darkness was winning and I wasn’t learning how to swim, I started to sink, when all of a sudden two arms gathered me up and pulled me to safety.  My older brother Shawn, either heard my cries for help or it was one of those in the right place at the right time scenarios. 

I don’t remember much right after, either I blacked out or I blocked the rest out.  I do remember my parents fighting and pulling at me as my mother was trying to get us all in the car.  I also remember as we drove away, a brown Michelob bottle smashing on the trunk of the car.  My mother stayed away for a while after this, but like she always did she was manipulated into reuniting with him.  I didn’t swim any more that summer.  I didn’t swim without my Linus blanket until today.

Till we run or swim into each other again…