Posted on by Zoya A. Abbas

Just Keep Swimming

To anyone who has ever felt burnt out doing the thing that they love.

When I was 10, I spent an entire summer learning how to swim. It was a surprisingly rare feat for someone in my immediate family, considering the fact that my dad was the only one who could do more than dip their feet in the shallow end of the pool. My parents enrolled me with a swim instructor in my neighborhood pool where I would grudgingly wake up every morning at 6 AM and spend numerous hours in the pool. I learnt free style, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly. My instructor was an eccentric man who always taught the strangest phrases to remember how to swim. My personal favorite was the term “bobbling” when referring to breathing underwater by letting out bubbles. He would send me under the water and yell at me to “Do bobbling!” in order to cement an instinct in me to breath.

To his defense, it worked. I didn’t die. 

The lessons began as enjoyable to me but, like many long term engagements I would get into, I began hitting a burn out towards the tail end of my summer. I was getting tired, irritable and longing for a summer of sleeping in till 11 am and wasting time away in the burning sun. Rather than that, I would find myself in the pool, bobbling and swimming along the long end of the pool. I would ask myself, what was the point of all this?

Eventually, this irritability began to show and it became harder to keep my head above the surface. I would spend less time under water and kept popping up for air. My instructor was very mad at me. After all, the point was to learn how to swim without needing air every five seconds. Everytime he would follow me as I freestyle back and forth, he would watch me pop my head up for air, even if I didn’t need it. I would apologize but proceed to do it again. And again. And again

He gave up with me but not without leaving me with a sentence that would follow me through life. It was during the 40th lap I was undertaking. We were both exhausted, tired from the sun and ready to get the day’s lesson over with. I stopped myself from my unbreaking freestyle stroke to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t, I can’t do it.”

My teacher sighed, “Why are you not trusting yourself? What is scaring you?”

I realized that I had no answer. I had nothing to be afraid of. 

The entire summer, I had spent with my breath. Breathing in the salt water, 6AM wake up and watermelon juice my babysitter would make for me after practice. Breathing out anxieties of sore muscles, no time to see my friends and tight swim caps that would suck all the blood out of my head. 

But after weeks and weeks of constantly holding my breath in, blaming exhaustion for my fears and nerves, it was time for me to let it go. Exhale the feeling of burning out and get back in touch with the reasons why I fell in love with swimming in the first place. The feeling of freedom, having no control over my body but also being hyper aware of every movement my muscles made. 

As my instructor would say, I had to let out all the bubbles and

just simply breath.

Posted on by Zoya A. Abbas

A Very Large Expanse of The Sea

Freeing. Scared. Cold. 

The ocean is a mystery to me and a recently discovered fear. After seeing images of the large bodies of water that surround us, countless shark movies and a couple of close calls, I never really enjoyed being in the ocean for too long. However after watching people race into the shallow waters of Fort Myers beach and the dolphins jumping around, I felt inspired to strip down to my swim suit and jump in after them. 

In theory, I shouldn’t have been afraid. There was a huge gap between the sandy waters near the beach and the red zone where the water dips. I knew how to swim. I had back up, my family sat around me and several other beach goers. So I jumped right in, feeling a cold feeling wash over my legs. It felt good.

“This feels amazing!” I reaffirmed to my Dad who nodded back, still wearing his sunglasses and hat in the water. I sat down and let the waves hit my back. I felt myself falling over and I let it happen, the sand clouding my face. It burned but I felt giddy and got back up again. The ocean can be cruel but I allowed it to play its games. 

Even though this part of the ocean was full of people running in from the beach, I felt like I was the only person in the water. I stretched my arms and felt the cool water against them.  The waves were gentle on my skin. When I lay down, no one crashed against me. It’s just me and the water. 

My cousin yelled, “Let’s go further!” 

In my state of delirious joy, I nodded and we swam closer and closer to the end of the safe zone. Our parents couldn’t see us and soon they became small dots in the distance. I kept on swimming, ignoring the fact that the sand under my feet was getting lower and lower. I felt free. I felt whole. 

A wave crashed against me. I was not prepared for it so I got knocked off my feet and down into the water. In a terrifying moment, I realized there was no sand for me to land and my head hit the water. The waves had turned their backs against me and pushed me further down. I couldn’t breathe, the salty water burned my eyes and my cousin was nowhere in sight. 

I had pushed my luck and went too far. I was alone now, no one to help me out. A fight or flight instinct kicked in and I pushed against the crashes and swam towards the beach. Even though I was close enough to make out the lines on my Mom’s beach towel, it felt like hours before I resurfaced, heaving and red in the face. My eyes were burning now so I splashed some cold water on my eyes.

As they adjusted to the light, I focused my sights on the red buoy I had crossed. It was only two miles from the beach, but it felt like I was so far away when I was in the water. I suppose that is the power of the ocean. I was among thousands of people and animals, but for a moment, I felt like a speck in the very large expanse of the sea.