down i go

I went scuba diving today.  I totally didn't expect much from it, I've been diving before, but its been almost 14 years.  David and his siblings gave me a quick crash course, and I remembered mostly everything.  So I wasn't worried...until I got in the water.  I had on David's mom's weight belt, and there was WAY too much weight, and I couldn't keep my head above the water, even with my bc completely filled.  David took some of my weight off and put it on his belt, while that helped, I was still struggling.  I managed though, and we swam out to the reef.  That's when it got scary.  We began to descend, it was only about 15 feet deep, but I sank to the bottom like a rock.  The speed I went down scared me, and I didn't have a chance to equalize my ears, so the pain in them was excruciating, I thought my head was going to explode!  I was totally panicking, and all I wanted to do was ditch the belt, the tank, the bc, everything, and shoot to the surface.  But I didn't.  I am honestly so proud of myself.  I got control of my panic, and talked myself down from the attack.  I took long deep slow breaths and stayed as still as possible until I got my bearings.  A just like that, it was ok.  My fear didn't own me.  Yay, go me!

End

Sometimes things end with a whimper, and that's ok too.