Breathe

I was in Australia floating in the Pacific Ocean over the Great Barrier Reef with an oxygen tank strapped to my back, preparing to scuba dive for the first time and I was panicking. While the rest of the group practiced emptying water from their masks and other tasks I was hyperventilating. My mask was filling with water from tears and I was ready to jump back on the boat.

I should have expected the panic. A couple years earlier I had attempted snorkeling for the first time in Key West and it didn’t go well. I can swim and I’m comfortable in and around water; I grew up a few blocks away from Lake Michigan. But I have issues with swimming in the ocean, the vastness of it overwhelms me and the uncertainty of what is swimming around in it terrifies me. I couldn’t seem to master breathing through the snorkel on that trip, particularly while having a panic attack over being in the big scary sea. Every time I put my face in the water I lost control of my breathing and swallowed about a gallon of salt water. I had to refuse a rescue mission from the boat crew and was out of the water after only about five minutes.

This time, though, I was in Australia off the coast of Cairns, Queensland. The water was warm, still, and shockingly clear. After days of rainstorms the weather had cleared and finally presented us with a chance to see the Great Barrier Reef. I was panicking but I also didn’t want to chicken out this time.

I felt claustrophobic in the water and couldn’t train myself to breathe through the mouthpiece when I went under. The group was ready to move away from the boat and I had decided to give up when the guide grabbed my hand, told me to plug my nose with my fingers, and follow him. He didn’t give me a chance to protest and suddenly we were swimming deeper and farther away from the boat. I went through the entire dive holding my nose with one hand and maintaining a death grip on the guide’s hand with the other. Plugging my nose, though (despite the fact that I had a mask on and couldn’t breathe through my nose anyway), forced me to focus on breathing through my mouth, and taking slow deep breaths through my mouth forced me to calm down and focus on the moment. The experience was spectacular in a once-in-a-lifetime kind of way. I wrote in my journal that day, “I feel like I’ve faced and overcome a fear, the ocean still freaks me out but it was so well worth it. I truly hope we can preserve this place for future visitors…it has exceeded my expectations.”

People travel for many reasons—to sight-see, to relax, to teach, to learn—I went to Australia for all of the above, but mostly I went there to make a decision about the direction of my life at that moment. I had been living in Vail, Colorado for about two and a half years and been in my relationship for nearly three. I wasn’t particularly happy and I felt my life coming to a crossroads or, possibly, a dead end. I found myself in Australia with the intention of finding clarity and making a decision about a relationship I had been unsure about for awhile. I wrote in my journal while there, “I truly hope to be changed by this experience and that it has an impact on my life, I don’t think it’s possible for it not to.”

I gained strength and confidence in Australia. I returned from the trip and made the decision to end my relationship and move forward. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and the aftermath of it was chaotic and challenging. More than once I considered un-doing that decision. I didn’t though. I waded through the chaos and focused on calming myself by breathing like I was under water and the peace I felt when the chaos subsided was spectacular.