Breathe
By Frida Mendoza
Exactly one year ago, when I was watching my 30th birthday candle and fulfilling one of my many clichés -watching the movie "I wish I was 30" with my best friend- I decided to learn those three activities that apparently everyone can do but I can't: swimming, biking and driving. Pure movement was what I was missing.
Could it be true that everyone knew how to swim except me? I was born in Mexico City, a capital city with no coastline, so I was one of the Chilangas who did not know the sea as a child and I had no opportunity to take lessons before, so I was among the more than 4 billion people estimated not to know how to swim in the world. of the more than 4 billion people estimated not to know how to swim in the world. What a fact and a way to refute my belief that everyone knew how to swim, right?
To talk about "my history with water" it is enough to tell you that when I was 18 years old I drowned unintentionally in a pool in Cuernavaca and I never imagined that that moment would trigger a terrible pressure in my chest and I would feel anxious all the time I stayed in a pool or the sea.
After noticing the anxiety, if I'm honest, I took it for granted that I didn't swim, I didn't know how and I wasn't going to do it. But life, the last paragraphs of "Liliana's Invincible Summer" where Cristina Rivera Garza talked about swimming, talking to my psychologist and then finding out that there were swimming classes for "adults with fear" left in me the idea of "I want to learn to swim".
I bought my goggles, my cap and I had the teacher's phone number. It was enough to call but the months, apathy and, yes, fear put it off and it wasn't until June of this year that in a fit of pique I sent that whats message.
It's been six months since the first time I entered the sports hall with a big "swimming lessons for adults with fear or panic" tarp and the next time I enter the pool I will be 31. It sounds quite ceremonious but I find it incredible and it gives me pride and excitement to remember that moment when I dared to dive into my own uncertainty and learned to coordinate, mechanize movements, let go in the water and be in good enough condition.
Why is it that when we are adults we think that there is no longer an opportunity to dare to do certain things? Why is it that talking and sharing our daily lives can seem mundane?
It has been a very long process of ups and downs where at the beginning I was paralyzed by nerves and the thought of "I'm going to drown" in which stroke by stroke I have been able to contain and take it as a moment of relaxation. It has also been a process in which I have more than an hour where I don't look at my cell phone, where I disconnect from everyone and everything except my body, and what a wonderful thing that has been, to feel my body, to combat the stress that the world, journalism and life itself can bring.
Recognizing the movements, seeing my mistakes in certain exercises and focusing to prevent that from sinking me has been therapeutic, healing and has even made me do a sport for the first time for pleasure and not as a goal to lose weight or anything like that.
I share this reflection on my birthday from joy, from a fear that is now kept at bay and from a knowledge of myself, because it has been undoubtedly an extremely difficult year in many aspects but also one that I have enjoyed the most hand in hand with the people I love, from whom I learn and with whom I share spaces day by day. Swimming has become one of my new routines and without wanting it to be a topic of conversation, I can already articulate the sentence "I can swim" and not feel it as a lie.
Do I still have a lot of polishing to do? Of course, but I recognize today in me a new skill that makes me proud and that although this time it is not a column that provides facts or figures, it is sometimes necessary to share experiences so that others who may be going through the same thing do not feel alone.
And I am well aware that this experience -Mitski would say: "mine and no one else's"- is just that, not a commercial to force other people to perform a certain activity. Each one of us lives and knows our own processes and opportunities, and recognizing ourselves is vital. Let's give ourselves a chance, a lot of chance.
PS: I still don't know how to drive or ride a bike, let's see when I get the courage.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
More than 150 opinions from 100 columnists await you for less than one book per month.
Comments ()