inspiration and friendship

Who am I kidding? Inspiration and friendship? What about an outright refusal to let me give up???

I'm talking about this one in the picture. She's called Chris, she's my wife's best friend, she's mine too, and I've known her since I was twenty three. I couldn't think of a better person to trust my life to in this whole endeavor, to be honest.

Chris has been a scuba diver since 2002 and she's now an extremely qualified and experienced scuba diving instructor. She's also the senior instructor at a dive club- and its with this brilliant bunch of people that I'm learning to scare myself witless...sorry- dive, every week!

This started a while back and it all began with her. She's got to take the blame for this, so I'm going to lay blame where it's deserved!

Okay, not 'blame' because its unfair to her- 'Credit' is much more applicable.

If you're ever scared of something, have you ever had someone gently, slowly, gradually encourage and persuade you to face it? There you go.

"When am I going to get you in the water?" was her first line.

If you've ever been faced with the impossible- whether it's "lets go free fall bungee jumping without a chord", or "you're volunteered to sing before three thousand people and you don't have musical training", you'll know what comes next.

Question one- pick from the following excuses:

a)- maybe later
b)- I'm a bit busy at the moment
c)- when I get a second, I'll sort something out
d)- Now? Right now? Oh, gosh- is that the time? I didn't realize I had to be somewhere else...
e)- all of the above

It didn't work.

She's got this pair of dark brown eyes that see right through you, which isn't good for putting off the inevitable. Like the bait on the hook, I squirmed, twisted, turned and procrastinated only to be met with the same, patient, calm gaze and the inevitable question...

"...so, when am I getting you in the pool?"

I didn't have a chance, really.

Chris wanted me to do a try dive. Also known as the 'discover scuba experience', this is a one hour (ish) indoor swimming pool scuba dive often re-created around the world in dive centres but done in open water.

And if you'd heard half the horror stories I've heard about holiday resort dodgy dive centres and their safety records, you'd run a mile!

I know there are more good ones than bad out there, but my advice is simple-

"if you want to discover scuba diving, go to a school registered with an international dive organisation and a good safety record"

The trial dive was set for April 2nd- I was ready, Chris was ready, the dive school was ready...

I bottled it.

Whether through stress or fear, my back locked and in pain I bailed on the night but undeterred, sent a message that although I was crying off on the 2nd, I wanted to go back the week after on the 9th.

Chris, in her usual, patient, supportive self, gave an 'okay' and left it at that.

I had moved from 'would I dive?' to 'when am I going to dive'. The 'if' replaced by a foregone conclusion of the 'when'.

What was I thinking? Here I was, thirty (cough) something years after my first near-drowning experience, about to go back in the water. Sure, I'd been in more recently at the gym and had tried to swim. I sort of taught myself at 25 to badly crawl, and my breast stroke looks like a gasping frog with an uncontrollable leg spasm. I couldn't tread water (remember the sinking thing? Always been too afraid to go out of my depth to learn, and couldn't believe I could do it anyway) and couldn't float.

So why put myself through this?

Same reason as mentioned before- I was tired of being afraid. It's also hard to say 'no' to yourself when you've got a friend like Chris. I didn't want her to have the stigma of turning to her dive school and saying "hey- this is Si, a good friend of mine, and he's too scared to go in the water. I'm an experienced / qualified instructor and I can't help him"

It looks bad.

I've had a lot of support from people who know I'm doing this and they've all said the same thing- "don't worry if you're too scared and give up- the fact that you came this far is impressive enough"

Not for me.

They've all said it- my wife, Chris, my friends- all of them. It's like they're giving me an 'out' if I fail or quit.

I don't want the 'out'. I also don't want to quit. In fact, I'm not going to.

What drives a person to face an irrational fear and overcome it? In my case, I drive myself harder than anyone else can drive me. I beat myself up when I fail (happens more often than I would like), and I am tired, so very tired, of that gut wrenching, churning, cold ball of fear in my stomach. It's like an ache I want to get rid of, a needle in my eye, an itch I can't scratch.

I want rid of it. Now. Forever.

But is willpower enough? I can't just wake up like a character in a movie and say "today, I'm not going to be afraid anymore!" no matter what the self help adverts tell you. Positive thought is all well and good, but it's hard to do. For anyone whose been in that negative spiral facing the seemingly impossible, its very, very hard to do.

But it's not impossible, and when something stops being impossible, you take a step along the road. And it's more than just a road:- it's a journey, a revealing of truth, a voyage of self discovery, and each time you realise something isn't quite as impossible, the goal becomes nearer.

When you deal with your fears, distance isn't determined by geography:- it's determined by belief.

I believe I can do this.

but I'm scared- not all the time, but just when I think about it.

But I believe I can do this.

So no matter how scared I am, I'm going to keep going back to that pool until I...well, until I no longer feel afraid.

Next time, I'll tell you about the try dive.