Breathing and crashing
Hello People,..
What do I want to write about today??
I have absolutely no idea.
So, I thought: rather than just wade my hands gently in the water or paddle my feet in the shallow end of the pool of ‘Lord, Please Give Me An Idea’, I’d just dive straight in.
Me diving straight in actually has history.
When I was just 7 years old, I did exactly that - in the DEEP END of an Olympic-sized swimming people.
Nearly drowned and it is true: you do see your life flashing before you.
But, here’s the thing: I hadn’t had much of a life before that. So, there wasn’t much to flash-back. But there was a click and that camera picture (of life) was very real.
So, although there wasn’t too much life experience to recall, I could remember that - after a while - I couldn’t breathe and that wasn’t cool.
[Rest in peace, brother - George Floyd - your death shall not be in vain].
Still, it was a very, very surreal experience (before the lifeguard jumped in).
You see…I saw….a light…a bright, bright light…..but it wasn’t necessarily a divine or spiritual type occurrence.
It was just a very sunny day but later - on reflection - it certainly did feel like the After Life.
To paraphrase Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’: I was, indeed, not the Messiah. I was just a very naughty boy!
Put me off water for a while.
Not baths or showers or drinking the stuff (thank goodness, I can hear some of you thinking) but, you know: swimming pools - of any size - and rivers and seas.
When I eventually learned to swim - I think I was 11 - they all started to clap. Not in any congratulatory sense, more mockingly but, hey, I’ll take any kind of accolades that come with water.
Any ‘pat on the back’ that doesn’t involve me dying or not breathing.
At 13, I went go-karting with a bunch of Macho Teenagers.
All teenagers are macho, you might well say. Well, a large number are but Swots are not and neither are Nerds.
I was not a nerd.
(For the record: Nerds - aka Techies - currently rule the world).
And yep, you can guess what happened next.
After about 6 laps of making relatively good speed, I got a little cocky.
I had left the Nerds way behind. Was high up amongst the Swots but wanted to catch up to the Machos.
As I took a corner a little too sharply, I couldn’t correctly navigate the steering wheel in time.
BANG…BANG…BANG…into the crash barrier at about 30 mph.
Or, was it 20 mph??
Readers, whatever it was…
IT
WAS
BLOODY
PAINFUL.
This was in 1983, folks: a time of minimal health and safety protection.
Managed to climb out of my car. Walked a few yards. Then collapsed onto the ground. Curled up into the foetal position.
Just pain…agonizing pain.
Then and for years afterwards.
Was wary of cars and driving for many years after that.
THEN, years later….. a mate suggested he wanted to round up the Lads to go…you guessed it…GO KARTING..for the first round of his Stag Do.
What may or may not have happened in the second round is unprintable.
PANIC…I can’t go through this again… YES, you can….NO, I can’t…YES, you must.
THIS TIME…I wasn’t proving ‘jack’, ‘diddly-squat’ ANY THING to the Lads…and these guys were much much more macho than the Macho Teenagers from yonder year.
I drove at slowest pace of the slowest ever known snail (with a driving permit).
I was lapped once, twice, three times - a lady.
I didn’t care.
I was the butt of many a joke that evening.
I didn’t care.
What I cared about?
I had finished the course without CRASHING.
I could still BREATHE.
I had gone way way way beyond my comfort zone.
And, had come out alive, affirmed, somewhat validated.
So, what’s the moral of this rather elongated story?
THROW YOURSELF in.
If it doesn’t kill ya, it may MAKE ya!
Peace and out (for now).