Water

anonymous

I wouldn’t call it a fear or something that makes my heart race anxiously at its mere thought. I wouldn’t call it my source of comfort or a cause of bringing me extreme joy either. Perhaps I’d classify it as something that spikes my curiosity. Something that curls my toes and leaves a hundred different cogs working in my brain. Something that requires a skill I am yet to perfect. Something I cannot comprehend and sympathise with completely. That’s what I would classify water to be for me. 

I learned how to swim when I was younger, but as I grew up, the skill left muscle memory, just like other less important memories do. I was never afraid of the water in the ocean or a swimming pool, never thought of it to be a threat. I never felt suffocated or helpless being surrounded in its embrace. I knew the water was alive. I knew the water existed just like all things do, just that it orbited and functioned differently. The moment you enter the water, you have to surrender to its rules. You have to carve your own path through the thick waves, kick your legs, push your body forward if you want to keep breathing. But knowing something and putting it into action are two completely different things. Just because you know the sunset’s a hybrid of red colors doesn’t mean you believe it until you see it with your own two eyes. 

Somehow, I could never connect with water. I could never understand why. Why did humans learn to move under water when they evolved to live on land? Why do humans find tranquility in floating through the waves while their hands and feet turn into a pruney, strange texture? Why can’t humans breathe underwater when it consists of chemicals that help them breathe in the first place?

All these questions make me confused, yet immensely intrigued. They make me think and also make me want to decipher and discover. I want to find answers to all these questions, I want to form a connection with the substance like other people seem to do effortlessly. These questions seem to be my main source of motivation to learn, to develop and enhance my skills towards a sport under the water, towards swimming. And that is why I strive to make water something that pushes me towards one end of the spectrum once and for all; I either come to loathe the idea of it or I end up adoring it more than other usual, ordinary things.