All my friends are into cruises. Cruises to Alaska, cruises to the Bahamas, to Mexico and around South America. They love cruises, the food, the scenery, and dinner at the captains table. I, however, have no interest in cruising. I do not even want to take a boat out on a lake. If I cant see the the bottom, I don’t want to be in anything that floats on water.

I like the pool (no deeper than 5 feet) I like the hot tub, especially with a gin and tonic in my hand, but basically anything that would require me to swim to stay alive, is out of the question. I have a healthy fear of water and this fear started at a young age, around age six.

I lived in a small south Texas town that had one community pool located on the edge of the town center; it had a large courtyard in front of the entrance. My memory says there was a fountain and a statue in the courtyard and to a little girl in Texas it appeared so modern and romantic. When you entered he building your nostrils were hit with a strong smell of chlorine as you ventured towards the changing rooms the girls to the right, boys to the left. I’d skip barefoot with excitement into the locker rooms tiled floor to ceiling. I can still envision the yellow-beige tile walls, the wire belonging baskets slightly rusted from the wet atmosphere. The baskets had a lock, after you locked it you’d pin the key, with the basket number attached, to your swim suit then exit through continuously running showers that lead to the pool. I loved this place.

When I was young, I often thought my mother was over-protective in many ways. I was the baby, the only girl and I used to resent the things my brothers could do that I was not allowed to do. Why could they do it? — Because they were boys. Sorting through my memories now, I realize maybe my mother wasn’t so protective after all because when I was six, the summer after Kindergarten, my mother let me go to the afternoon pool time with the teenage girls that lived next door. I am thinking now I was probably allowed to go because it was a hot Texas day and a few hours in the pool was perfect for cooling off. I was excited to go with them as no adult was going but their mother drove us and dropped us off. I was feeling very grown up.

Once in the pool, I happily splashed as I crawled along hanging onto the edges when a boy from my class approached me. His name I don’t remember and it is really not important, what is important was that he could swim. He was diving off the diving board, and he informed me that his dad was the lifeguard. Blah, blah, blah blah blah…. then it happened, he made fun of me because as he rightly said, I could not swim.

Well, as the conversation and the insults continued, I insisted that I could swim. After all, I was sure I could do anything my brothers could do or any boy for that matter. I was tired of being relegated to the “not for girls” category. So having insisted I could swim, he put forth the challenge. We would go together and he would dive off the high-dive board and I would follow.

The desire to prove myself was strong, I was not go to back down even though I knew, I could not swim! We climbed the ladder together; when he reached the top he hustled down the to end of the diving board and jumped. Just that fast. It looked pretty easy. I followed, I walked out to the end of the blue board and looked down. As I peered at the water below, I had a moment of wisdom and walked back towards the ladder. I reached the ladder and thought of how he was going to make fun of me, so I walked out to end of the board again and looked down… still not enough courage to jump. I walked back to the ladder. I looked out into the pool and I could see him at the edge watching me, laughing. So I made a final trip down the catwalk and jumped.

I don’t even remember the trip down, but I remember plunging into the water and the bubbles floating over my head. I sank to the bottom, floated up and sank again. The second time I surfaced I could hear the lifeguard’s whistle and the next thing I knew I was scooped up like a wet rag and pulled out of the pool.

I’ll never forget what the lifeguard said to me. He said, “I wondered about you when I saw you walk back and forth on the board.” Yeah, well I was trying to prove something. Of course, I felt humiliated, but I did not lose because after all, I did jump.

The girls that brought me came and scolded me, the boy laughed at me and I spent the rest of the pool time sitting on the edge of the pool with my feet in the water. When the teens’ mother picked us up, I was the first one to get in the car and they followed shortly eager to tell her what I had done. Her remark was, “I wondered why you were so dry.”

I said nothing when I got home but within a few minutes the neighbor came over and told my mother. Oh, the tears and the crying. I really didn’t understand why the fuss, I was still quite alive.

There you have it, this was my earliest attempt at risk-taking and I have been adverse to taking risk ever since. I took a risk once and that was enough to teach me a lesson.

So you see, I will not be going on any retirement cruises as all my friends are and if you hear I went out on the lake, fell overboard and drowned, please go looking for my killer because I do not like boats, I do not like deep water, and I still cannot swim.