Little Nostalgia: My Memory Gallery

Exhibit 6: The Swimming Lesson

I think I was in 6th grade when this happened. I don't quite remember it well enough to know the exact timeline, but this is around the time when my younger cousin sister and I were inseparable. So, every summer vacation, holidays for us meant seeing each other and spending next month and a half stuck to each other like glue.

One of the Summer activities I did when I would stay at my Aunt's house was follow my sister for her swimming classes to a place called Friends Club. I suppose they were no longer classes since we just went there to swim and have fun and nobody actually taught us anything.

My sister did know how to swim though. She had learnt and I never did. So I mostly hung around the shallow ends of the pool and we'll play silly games in water and sometimes I'd go to the deeper ends while holding onto the walls.

I was good at holding my breath so one of the games we'd play going all the way to the floor in the 10 feet water while holding onto the stairs. I was pretty good at it even if I couldn't swim.

This one evening though, we ran into one of her friends. This girl was older than my sister but younger than me and I think they had met during swimming classes. I was too shy to want to hang out with an extra person or pretty much anyone other than my sister, but somehow we ended up hanging out together that evening in the swimming pool.

I am not sure whose idea it was, but somebody threw it out; teach me to swim. I didn't want to learn, I just wanted to play in water like we did every day, but I couldn't quite say it with enough firmness so they took me to around 6 feet in the swimming pool since that was essentially where my feet completely stopped touching the floor.

My "teacher" was obviously the new girl, the friend we had met. And I don't think I quite hated anyone the way I hated her after that day for a while.

She took me to the deeper end, made me lose my hold on the side walls and basically left me in the middle to fend for myself. I don't know if that's the technique they use in swimming classes or if it works, but I found it so stupid because I was essentially drowning for what felt like next three minutes or so, trying my best to keep afloat and make my way back to the wall again.

While the two of them swam nearby, watching me struggle to breathe.

I think I nearly made it to the wall once and the girl actually had the audacity to pull me back in the water.

Eventually, my sister had some sense knocked into her because she did catch me and take me to the side so that I could catch onto a wall and finally catch my breath.

The class was over immediately after that. I didn't want to have to do anything with that girl anymore. And although I couldn't say anything to her face, I avoided her with everything I had for pretty much the rest of the summer there anytime we ran into her by chance.

I told everyone at home, but nobody thought it was bad enough or that I would've drowned. Maybe...maybe I wouldn't have drowned. Lifeguards were around us. But how in the world anyone thought it was okay for a kid to teach another kid to swim by literally doing nothing but dropping them in the middle of the pool is beyond my understanding.

We were all kids. I could've drowned. There was a chance. Maybe a small chance, but there was definitely a chance.

I didn't even want to learn. Those two wanted to play teacher and teach me and forced me to play along with them. And to think I was the older one of the lot.

The memories of that time have faded, but I can still remember it in bits and pieces. I remember struggling to breathe and the way water was all inside my nose and how it stung afterwards too.

I faintly remember the girl's face too. In case I ever run into her again in life.

I'm kidding.

But I seriously don't appreciate that day or either of the girls' lessons to teach me how to swim the way they did. I always thought that maybe eventually I'd see sense in their ways, their methods, but I don't. It has been years, maybe even a decade. But I still don't think I should've gone through something like that in order for them to realise it wasn't the way.

I didn't know anything about swimming. They were relying on my survival instinct to make me learn which is quite stupid if you ask me. Imagine all the ways that could go wrong and does go wrong.

No, I don't recommend this. I don't recommend using people who know nothing about the subject to use them as an experiment for your teaching skills.

Though if I'm being honest, I wonder if they still think I was just a bad student instead.

I still don't know how to swim. I never got around to learning it. But eventually, I guess eventually, I will. Someday. By somebody professional. Somebody who wouldn't think in movie logics and actually teach me how to use my hands and legs and body and head. Instead of throwing me into a pool, expecting me to grow a tail. I'm not Ariel.

But also, I hold no grudges against anyone for that little moment in time that I went through like everything else we do in life. It certainly was a bad experience and is a bad memory to think of now, but like I said, we were all just kids. I wasn't strong enough to stop them and they weren't mature enough to understand that maybe that wasn't the right way to help me.

At the end of the day though, I realise that's all they wanted to do anyway. They both just wanted to help me learn how to swim. And the person I have grown into feels kind of grateful that they at least tried. A bad attempt of it, but a try nonetheless.

I don't know if it's maturity or kindness that I'm showing now, but I think both are good and that's all that matters.

I miss those days when my sister and I were like two peas in a pod. The evenings we spent playing in the swimming pool and refused to get out until we were practically forced out of it. The cheese balls we loved eating afterwards at the club restaurant. The way we would rush home because we had gotten late while eating and calls were flooding in, often leading to us getting scolded. I miss those days when things were about what we were doing and could do in the moment and about that alone.

I miss the simpler days when I nearly drowned in water while playing, but it was still just one of the many days that were easier to survive through.