Grateful for Having Finally Won against My Fear of Deep Water

Day 51 of 365 grateful days project:

"I'm grateful that I had finally won against my fear of deep water."

We dived!!!

Because of my inconsistency in blogging my 356 grateful days project, I missed to state one of the most awesome highlights of the year: my lovely birthday trip in Amed and Sidemen.

After my devastating 31st birthday last year - not how I spent the day, but this referred to my feelings back then - I decided that I didn't want any party this year. Vincent actually didn't either for his birthday, but his family was here in August and they threw him a nice birthday party in their villa. He couldn't escape his own birthday party, could he? But before anybody was thinking to throw me any party, I told Vincent that I didn't want to have one. Instead, I wanted to travel. He said, "Great idea, we can do that."

So we packed our bags and went to Amed for our first diving experience. Especially for me, this was a big thing. I was once that little girl who was running about in my grandparents' house and fell into the big underground water tanks whose lid was open and had water phobia ever since. I remember before I was twelve years old, I had to get my mother to wash my hair every.single.time. She'd get me to face the ceiling as she shampooed and rinsed my hair. If any drop of water was slipping through my forehead and reaching my eyelids, I'd immediately panicked, screamed and gasped for air. Only in 2007 I managed to beat my water phobia and learn to swim. And 28 August 2011 marked the day when I finally dived. Something that was out of the question with me before. But I did it anyway!!!

I was proud of myself.

Yes, indeed in the second dive I was choked at the bottom of the sea, most possibly because the fried squid I ate for lunch half an hour before wanted to escape my throat. I coughed it out, lost my primary regulator, managed to get it back but couldn't clear the water at all! I signalled the dive instructor that I had problem with it, he tried to fix it, but water still came in. I couldn't breathe for a period that I thought the longest time I held my breath in my life, and when finally I realised I had nothing but salty water for the next forever, I grabbed, scratched and chocked the dive instructor. He took us to the surface after he managed to get away from my violent strangling action, and let me tell you, my friends.... I've never felt so RELIEVED in my life EVER. I'd never been so grateful for the oxygen; the cheapest, most important yet often taken-for-grated thing in life, until then! I spent the next two minutes crying out loud while floating, throwing up tons of sea water out of my stomach and taking as much as air as I could into my lungs. But then a question was posed by the instructor. Did I want to go back to the beach or did I want to go back down the sea?

Although my first thought was that it was so mean to ask this kind of question when I hadn't even finished puking, I knew that I had to answer that anyway. And after like 5 minutes thinking - that was long by the way if you were floating in the middle of the sea - I decided to go back down the sea.

I was proud of myself again.

My throat fucking hurt and I couldn't stop coughing even when diving, but I tried to distract my attention to the beautiful fishes, the ruins of a small ship and the feeling that I was safe with these two guys. It wasn't a very long journey, but the satisfaction that I actually chose to go back to the sea after I thought that I was gonna die was incredible. For a water coward, I felt very brave.

Anyway, we went back to the hotel very, very tired that day, but we definitely got such unforgettable memories.