diving board
When I was a little girl I loved going to the swimming pool each and every day of the summer. My mom was a single mom and she had to work, and that meant we spent our days with our babysitter. Her teenage daughter took us to the local pool each day and I would love to be there. In fact, there would be days when you could not get me out of the pool, and when it rained and we could not go swimming, I would be very disappointed. This went on for quite a few summers until my mom no longer needed to work all the time and we could stay home with her. Though I was a great swimmer, I was always scared of the diving board.
The pool in our town was small, but our town was small too. Though it was not the biggest one around, it was always clean, and when thinking about size versus cleanliness, I always prefer that something is clean. There were two diving boards there, and one large slide. The smaller diving board was only about four feet from the water, and though it took me a while, I finally go the courage up to use it. When it came to the large diving board however, well, that was a different story entirely. I was only eight then, and that board seemed to climb up into the sky.
It took me a long time to get the nerve up to climb up on the high diving board, and though thinking back, it wasn’t even very big. I finally got up there one day, and had to climb back down. I never really considered myself to be afraid of heights because I loved to climb high up in trees. The thought of hurling myself down from that height was unthinkable. I love to be up high, but when I was in a tree, I never dreamed of jumping down, even when water was involved. However, this was just something I knew I needed to do, so I tried again.
I finally go the nerve up to jump off that high diving board, and though it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, it was not something that I ever did again. Even now when I am swimming I don’t really care for the high diving board. I guess there is just something scary about diving in head first from that height that I might never get over. Now that I am over thirty, I don’t think there is anything that anyone can do to change my mind.
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