I Can Swim

After I jumped off the diving board at camp, I hit the water and swam to the top. It was so fun that I wanted to do it over and over again. The problem is that the dives didn't always turn out that way.

About 2 years ago, when I was at my camp, the girls were able to go on a night swim. It's not complicated, really. We just went swimming. At night. It was a blast. On this particular night, I was in line to jump off the high dive for about the tenth time, probably. I got to the top and walked to the end like I had so many times before, with the mission of doing a twist, my favorite trick, so that my friends could see how cool and awesomized I was. I walked too fast, and the board was very slippery from all of the people who had went on before me. I fell off of the diving board, and before I had a chance to take a breath, I hit the water, and for the first time, I hit the bottom of the pool.

At first I thought that was awesome, because I had been trying so hard to dive all the way to the bottom. Then reality caught up with me. I was 12 feet down, with no air, and panicked. Making this realization was probably the worst thing that I could have done because when I did, I gasped. Underwater. Good job, Muffin. So now I was probably 8 feet under, all tangled up, with water in my mouth (which tasted disgusting, by the way), and no air. I started getting dizzy and I felt like my lungs were going to explode. Just then, I hit the surface. I was gasping for air and coughing up water. I was really dizzy and my head hurt. I seriously thought I was going to die while I was under. But I didn't.

This whole thing that's been going on over the past few months is the same way. Sometimes, you take a big risk and don't get the great results that you want. Things don't always turn out the way you want them to. But, even when they don't, you'll still live. You may be hurt and frustrated, and you may feel like you won't live through it. But you will.

You can swim.