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Every summer, there is a pontoon on the beach below our house. It’s a floating trampoline anchored to the bottom and you can swim out to it and clamber aboard. My son has decided this is the year he wants to go to the pontoon. He’s been taking swimming lessons and can tread water but he’s no Michael Phelps.
In the past week, we’ve been out a couple of times at low tide. I could wade halfway and then swim the rest, which means an almost-6-year-old is on my back while I’m doing awkward breaststroke. He has a habit of pushing my legs down so we both lose buoyancy.
Yesterday we went down for an afternoon swim and he wanted to go out. It was high tide so I was more reluctant but it didn’t look that much further.
So we set off. After a few meters, it was too deep to walk so we started swimming. He was an absolute dead weight. Arms around my neck. Legs flailing.
I felt like I was treading water while being attacked by an animal. Halfway there, I realised I had bitten off more than I could chew. I thought about turning back, but I kept going.
When we got there, I was knackered, breathing like I had sprinted 2k’s, and eyes stinging. The pontoon had been flipped. No ladder. Nothing to hold onto. We grabbed the anchor cable and floated while I contemplated my stupidity of taking my 5-year-old son who can barely swim into deep water 150 metres from the beach.
Then a guy appeared.
One of those solver foxes who just casually swims the 11km from Auckland while listening to Beethoven. He looked at me, and I said “We may need some help getting back.”
No worries.
So we took turns paddling with my son back to the shore in the slowest swim I’ve ever been on. But we made it. No one died, I learned a very valuable lesson about my capabilities, and I asked for help.
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You often set off on a journey thinking it will be just like one you’ve made before. Full of optimism. Halfway there you realise you have bitten off more than you can handle on your own. Do I turn back or keep going? You keep going, then realise if you turn back you are more likely to drown. Sometimes you find a pontoon to grab onto to take a breather. You might get lucky and help swims by.
At that moment, you have a decision to make: Continue the journey on your own and risk drowning or ask for help.
In past years, ego was the thing that stopped me from asking for help. Our ego would rather drown than risk being seen as weak. But we aren’t our ego. We are smart and we want to live to swim again tomorrow.
We almost drowned that day.
Don’t drown. Ask for help.
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Photo credit: Pixabay