June 30: Facing A Fear

I'm 29 years old and a terrible swimmer. I might as well start with that. For a variety of reasons I never really learned how as a kid. The concept of being underwater is about as scary to me as anything I can imagine. I've gotten better at swimming over the last few years but I still do everything I can to keep my head above water.

I'm also not great with heights. It's not nearly as bad as my fear of being underwater, but it's notable. I'm clumsy and I don't like being near/on things that may fall or cause me to fall. If you saw how clumsy I am day-to-day, you might think this fear is completely rational.

At any rate, Saturday gave me an opportunity to cram both of those fears into one package. While on a day trip to visit our friend Andrea, we visited a "jumping rock" on Chute Pond near Mountain.

The rock itself is probably scarier to me than it is to most people. It's only roughly 8 feet high, so it's not like you're jumping off a cliff, and the water underneath is probably between 8-10 feet deep. But that combination of facts meant I'd be underwater, which I hate, and would have to find my way back to the surface and work my way back to dry land.

I had convinced myself I was going to do this, even though the concept of doing so was already freaking me out on Friday. And it took several false starts and a lot of convincing from my wife, Andrea and miscellaneous strangers but I did it.

Most of my false starts involved taking a few running steps towards the edge of the rock and then pulling up at the last second. My actual success wasn't much different. I actually thought I was going to stop at the last second but for whatever reason I took that extra step. I remember nothing of the fall, but I do recall hitting the bottom and frantically finding the surface for that first breath of air.

I thought that once I'd done this once it'd be no big deal and I'd want to do it again. That was not the case. I hung out on the rock for a few minutes before deciding I'd had enough and moving on to our next stop.

Did I exercise today? Yes, but I didn't run. I did the little bit of swimming I mentioned below (and I could still feel the adrenaline rush from it six hours later), walked about two miles and climbed a fire tower.

During the aforementioned walk, I slipped on a wet rock and twisted my knee a little. I don't think it's serious but it's pretty sore today and is probably going to make exercise an interesting challenge for a couple of days.