4 For 29: Splish Splash

To the surprise of many bartenders and my own mother, I will turn 29 years old in a week from Wednesday. This is the last birthday where I will actually acknowledge the age I am turning. After this year, I will officially turn “grumble.”

Since my birthday is so close to New Year’s, I tend not to make New Year’s resolutions, but goals tied to my birthday. I’ve settled on four goals for my 29th year, and since this year’s are actually interesting, and things I need my readers to assist with, I thought I might share them with you.

So here is the first of my 4 For 29.

The Seabreeze water slides. (Photo: Seabreeze)

1.) Learn How To Swim

When I was 10, my mother presented me with a choice to continue taking dance classes or take swimming lessons at the East High School pool. My parents couldn’t afford both, so I had to choose between the two.

I remember my mother sitting with me at our tiny kitchen table with the two typewritten registration forms in front of us. Our faux-maple round table was the place where all important family conversations took place, from “Why did the principal call me and say you refused to go to music class?” in first grade, to “Your mom and I can’t contribute any money to college,” twelve years later. Obviously, on the scale of conversations the table had seen, this was on the mild end.

“It’s important to learn how to swim,” explained my mother (who has made it a career to reason with elementary schoolers about their lunch choices, and for that, she’s deserves more shots than I could ever buy her.) “But you are a very good dancer, and I know you like that.”

I had made it that long without learning how to swim, so I wondered aloud how crucial that skill would really be.

“Well, do you want to be able to go on the Seabreeze water slides without a life jacket?” asked my mother. (For the non-Western New Yorkers among us, Seabreeze was one of our area amusement parks, and at the time, they had recently added water slides.)

I was blunt. “Not really. The lines are too long.”

And because the Seabreeze water slide lines were too long, the decision was made. I wouldn’t learn how to swim. This wasn’t a big deal to little kid me – I had no access to a pool, knew no one with a pool, and the sport was one of the few Olympic sports I had no desire to try.

High school came and went, and seeing that I attended to the only Rochester City School District high school without a pool, the district’s swimming requirement for graduation was waived for my school. My little sister and brother ended up learning how to swim because of a free program that was established a few years later, but by that time, I was too old to participate. Tto this day, I have never learned how to swim. And you know what? It hasn’t really impacted me that much.

Until now.

Those who follow me on Twitter regularly know that I was waylaid by a nasty illness through November and December, and while sick, I was diagnosed with moderate asthma. It explained a lot of the problems I’d been having, and I’m feeling amazingly better now that I’m being treated for it.

Included in the asthma diagnosis is a limitation of some of the physical activity I can do, and a suggestion that I swim for exercise. Swimming is one of the best exercises an asthmatic can do, given the humidity and warm temperature of a pool.

So, I guess I finally have to learn how to swim.

But where exactly does a 29 year old learn how to swim? I can’t just sign up for “Tiny Bubbles” or “Little Minnows” toddler swim classes. I did sign up for an adult learn-to-swim class twice before, while in grad school, and both were canceled because I was the only registrant. Where can I go in Boston or on the North Shore to learn how to swim without having to discuss Dora the Explorer with my classmates? Better yet, where to learn how to swim without having to take out a loan in order to afford lessons?

More importantly, what type of swimsuit do I buy?

So dear readers, your help is requested. Do you have any suggestions for me?