Fear of Open Water

To creep you out, or not? When I swim in the pool, I'm mostly okay. When I swim in open water, it's a different story. I've made peace with some open water. Dale Hallow Lake is so clean that you can see your toe nails when you're treading water. As long as I'm swimming close to a boat and can get out of the water when I want, I'm fine there. In the ocean, as long as I can see some of the shells on the bottom (and see that there's nothing creepy by my toes), I'm okay.

It's a different story in lake water that is murky. My imagination takes me to places I fear would be unfair to share. The things that lurk below that water are reminiscent of creatures from Jacko's Thriller video, or the "Passage of the Marshes" from the Two Towers (the book actually calls it the Dead Marshes). I think this is enough info. I have included links to photos of these images, so if you click on the lime green, you'll see an example of what I imagine. If you'd rather not see, don't click the lime green.

So, we've done our open water training in Lake Lanier, which I consider to be very murky. I hate it. I love swimming! I hate Lake Lanier. While I'm swimming in this lake, I sometimes have to sprint to run away from my imagination. Sometimes, I come up for air, shriek a bit, shake my hands like I'm shaking something awful off of them, then force my head back into the water and keep going. It's kinda funny, really. I'm sure the people in the kayaks laugh at me!

I've been able to distract myself twice. Once by turning my brain onto the topic of organizing the thank you notes I'm writing, and once by thinking about my grandma's spaghetti. I haven't had her spaghetti for a long time, but when I was a kid I loved it! I'll need some topics to capture my imagination race day, so if you have any ideas, please share!