My instructor hovered over me, her feet planted firmly on concrete, waiting for me to come up for air.
I was alone in the cool water of a high school pool, humbly out of breath after a few minutes of struggling to reach the deep end.
"You looked better than I thought you would," she said kindly. "You know, after what you told me."
I'm guessing she was relieved that I didn't immediately sink to the bottom.
What I told this graceful young woman, who swam competitively in high school and now teaches private lessons, is that I could survive in the water doing a doggy paddle for, I don't know, eight minutes?
That I'd broken my right arm clear through at age 15, and it had never fully healed.
That somewhere in childhood, maybe or maybe not related to that break, my love of diving to the bottom of the deep end to reclaim a penny twisted into a palpable fear of being immersed under the shallowest water for more than a few seconds.
That I was tired of being afraid.