My Heart Will Go On....With a Floatation Device



See this doesn't happen if you drown!

I can't swim.

I am the epitome of the stereotypical black person refusing to learn how to navigate the water by flailing their arms like a windmill.

I really don't care if it's good cardio.

I just have an unnatural fear of the water. I don't think it can hold me. I think I will drown and it will not be the romantic kind of drowning as there was in the movie "Titanic."

There will be no hot guy saying precious and loving words.

There will be no James Cameron telling me to look more forlorn and tortured.

There will be no Celine Dion singing passionately about my demise.

There will just be me with my hair getting really messed up and probably no one to save me. This is what I think about any time I see a body of water.

I want to say I blame this on my father as he almost drowned me (unintentionally) on a family trip to Wisconsin when I was a young child.

Let me preface this story by saying I love my father. He is a good man and husband. He just wasn’t very good at keeping an eye on me so I would get lost in a store or slam my finger in a car door. But, as a child, you have to eventually learn that you can’t depend on everyone – not even family.

When my father was “teaching” me how to swim, he said to let him know when I wanted him to let me go. I responded by saying, “OK dad. Don’t let me go, yet.”

Readers, we can all guess what happens next so I won’t bore you with the near death experience details except to say that my glorious glimpse of heaven at the tender age of eleven involved mountains of cupcakes and no school.

I’ve never attempted to learn how to swim since that time.

I just use the old psychology trick of blaming a parent for my shortcomings as an adult. It’s an American thing to do – and most convenient.