I am grateful for water, but I have a love hate relationship with it. I understand we need it to survive. I drink water regularly and shower daily, but when it comes to actually getting into a large body of water I am not a fan of the stuff. I think one of the reasons I dislike water is because it is so difficult to stand on and breathe properly once you go underneath it's surface. Watching the Discovery channel has also educated me to the fact that there are millions of life forms that live in lakes, seas, and oceans that I want nothing to do with.I am not the greatest swimmer and what compounds the problem is that I'm also sensitive to cold water. I remember going to a scout camp when I was a teenager. On the first day they had a mandatory swim check before you could do anything else. I watched all my friends in front of my jump in the water and start swimming. When it was my turn I jumped in and may as well have been hit by a car. I didn't realize that it was a glacier fed lake and as soon as I hit the water all my muscles contracted and I couldn't breathe. I thrashed around making embarrassing noises like I had the wind knocked out of me. After about 2 minutes of making a fool of myself much to the amusement of every scout in the camp I was able to acclimatize to the cold water and finish the swim check.
I have been on a couple cruises and I enjoyed the food (gluttony) aspect of it but as you know I am a movie enthusiast and have seen too many scenarios from White Squall, Poseidon Adventure, Jaws, The Perfect Storm, The Day After Tomorrow, and Titanic. Luckily having a large movie repertoire to draw on also helped me when I got scared of the water. I would just recall scenes form Speed 2 which would snap me out of my fear as I broke into laughter. I did just fine as long as I was confined to the dining area but going out on the deck made me realize how much water was surrounding me.Some people have accused me of being a little paranoid and neurotic when it comes to water, but there are lots of other people who wear life jackets to work too just in case a dam upstream happens to break.
8 comments:
I'm guessing then that you'd be the lion/cat guy.
Listen, as long as you shower, that's all that matters.
Oh, and with my new work schedule and not having as much privacy to check blogs, my commenting first may suffer.
Wasn't White Squall a great movie...I didn't think anyone else had seen it.
I also had to overcome a major fear of water as a child. An unfortunate boat accident scarred me I'm afraid.
So I feel your pain!
anytime I have ever been waterskiing it's the moment of waiting between getting ready and saying "hit it" when I feel the sandpaper skin that can only belong to a great white shark brush against my legs. The larger the body of water, the larger the shark. I am currently limiting my waterskiing to small ponds and canals just for that reason.
When getting certified on a chartered sailboat in BVI, the captain impressed on our group how dangerous it is to fall in the ocean. He pitched a flourescent orange life vest in the water as we were slowly sailing along at 5 knts. But we were all shocked that within 10 seconds we all lost sight of something so visible with the waves. Luckily we did the figure 8 and came back to the overboard spot. But falling in = dangerous, even more so in colder latitudes.
It's not the deck of the cruise ship that scares me. I'm okay up there. It's going down the flights of stairs into the belly of the ship with no windows and realizing I would NEVER get out of here in an emergency...kind of like the mom reading to her babies down below in "Titanic." HORRIBLE!
Speaking of horrible water movies, how about the one with the people down in the tunnel...I think John Travolta was in it? Dang! I can't remember what it's called, but I'm sure you can.
Thanks for the reminder. That was Daylight with Sylvester Stalone and Viggo Mortensen. You are right. It's bad to drown in the open water but worse in a tunnel.
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