\u201cHe\u2019s added a new dimension to his game\u201d is an expression for how a footballer has improved something to make them a different, better player.<\/p>\n
Well, I\u2019ve literally done that now. I\u2019ve gone from 2D to 3D. Precisely at the time in life when one might be doing less lepping and high-jinks on land.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After a realisation that you\u2019ve just jumped off a wall and you think your kneecaps might emerge through your arse, you think: OK, I\u2019ll have to cut back on the jumping. But I\u2019ve found a new place to head on the old z-axis \u2014 the swimming pool.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m splashing around, treading water, not panicking in the deep end.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s absurdly late in life. I should have done it earlier. I just never got around to learning how to swim out of my depth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I can use my arms and legs in a vague forward motion. I don\u2019t mind my face being in the water. I don\u2019t have a childhood trauma about this.<\/p>\n
But for the past nearly half a century, if I couldn\u2019t feel the ground beneath my feet in the water, my brain told my body to do precisely all the wrong things. So I stayed out of 1.5m or deeper.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a massive deal. I was never that interested in scuba diving.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But swimming at the beach was always within the very safe zone, and every so often I\u2019d panic that I\u2019d lost my bearings and find I was actually in knee-deep water.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the back of my mind, I reckoned I should sort this out one day but never got round to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the thought creeps in \u2014 maybe I\u2019m just one of those people who won\u2019t swim out of their depth.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s changed is that my children can now swim enough to be out of their depth, and I was useless to them and worse, not letting them mess around in the deep end because I couldn\u2019t be there with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n I\u2019m sure there\u2019s some sort of symbolism here about inflicting your own hang-ups on your children and hindering their progress in life, but I refuse to learn any life lessons from this.\n <\/p>\n
I did get swimming lessons though. In Crumlin a nice woman called Caitlin showed me and nine mostly retirees how to stay afloat over the course of a few weeks, how to dive in and come back up and generally how gravity, legs, water, and arms can work together to keep my body up.<\/p>\n
So last Sunday, the children and I went to the pool and went straight down the deep end, and we had the best time. Like we were all the same age.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Having races. Trying to sit on the bottom, some game my eldest made up called \u2018Crocodile\u2019, whose rules I still don\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n
Just me hanging out with The Two. It\u2019s an inversion of the normal run of things. As children grow older, you mark the milestones where they start to join you.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Walks, longer car journeys without breaks, and going to restaurants without an exit plan.<\/p>\n
But now it\u2019s me being old enough to join them.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s not get into the weeds of why I didn\u2019t do this before. I could have got lessons at any stage but didn\u2019t. But to quote anyone trying to avoid answering, \u201cLookit, we are where we are\u201d.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not a lifesaver. I\u2019d still be a liability in a rescue. But at least I wouldn\u2019t waste valuable time saying, \u201cI should have learned to swim\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019d get help faster. And I think I might become one of those people who go swimming in a pool with a deep end.<\/p>\n
No problem with kneecaps or hamstrings. Just me in the third dimension.<\/p>\n