Just Breathe

There's a lot of things that are good for you — eating your vegetables, brushing your teeth, taking vitamins, etc.  Notice that holding your breath for a long time is not on this list.

Recently, I had my first drug experience.  And no, it did not involve drugs.  I held my breath for too long during swim practice and I kind of started hallucinating.  It was a great time and all, but I highly recommend against it.

And I did not hold my breath this long out of my own desire to see sounds, it was a set that everyone had to do.  It was 20x25's (a 25 is going across the pool), and they were all under water.  In case you don't understand what that means, it means you have to kink underwater from one end of the pool to the other without breathing.

Now, the coach wasn't necessarily trying to kill us, at least not that I'm aware of.  She did say, "If you come up for air we're starting over, but I don't want you to die, so you know...breathe if you must."  This comforted me a little bit, knowing that if I do start to feel euphoric from lack of oxygen I have permission to breathe, but I was still not feeling good inside about this.

I got myself more worried than I probably should of, and I ended up only needing to come up to breathe on seven or eight of the 25's.  Thinking back on it, I probably could have made all twenty if I really put my mind into it, but it wasn't worth my life or sanity to try to make all of them.

Candid picture of me holding my breath.
Photo courtesy of: Whiskerino

Now that's its done, I'm kind of glad we did it.  I mean, for like three hours after I had a throbbing behind my right eye and I couldn't really focus on something, but eventually that went away, and I believe that now I'm a better person because it.

Whenever I feel like something is hard, like cleaning the toilet or talking to adults on the phone, I can just say to myself, "It could be worse.  I could be purposefully drowning myself like I did at swim practice that one time."

It's nice to know that I did something that horribly abusive because now, other things don't seem as horribly abusive.

I think this is something we all need to learn — the fact that it could always be worse.  Unless of course you really half to pee during a lockdown drill, because nothing is worse than that.  Besides that though, everything could be worse, so whenever you find something horrible, just think to yourself that it could be a whole lot more horrible.

I understand that this is kind of a downer outlook on life, but I mean come on guys — when you think having to wake up early is so horrible, imagine what it must be like for kids that have to wake up three hours earlier than you do so they can go to work before school so they can buy food for their families.

We're really lucky to have the lives we have.  I mean, if you're reading this right now then you have access to a phone or computer, and that's better than most of the world has it.

I don't mean to make you feel bad about yourself.  You rock, and don't let anybody tell you differently, but the next time you think something is hard, just remember that it could be worse.

And maybe, thinking this will help it seem easier.  And if you can make something hard seem easier, why wouldn't you?

Keep your head above water, kids.
Elise :)