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| The international sign for "Whose Idea Was This"? |
Any of you who catch up with me on Facebook may have seen
that my most recent attempt to break out of my comfort zone has been to learn
how to scuba dive. Now, I’m not sure
that all of you would agree that diving is an inherently scary activity, as
many of my friends have been doing this seamlessly for years, but based on
quite few of the comments on my Facebook posting, I can see that I am not alone
in my fear of deep, wet, airless spaces.
Many of you chimed in and told me how brave I was to do this, and I
appreciate the shout-outs of support.
However, while I am glad that I was able to overcome my nervousness and
to, as the Nike ad proclaims, “just do it,” I don’t think I am any braver than
many people I know who do all sorts of things that push them out of their
routine and into an uncharted and perhaps, uncomfortable ocean.
Is my taking up scuba diving really any more of an
accomplishment than that of my newest neighbor who, fighting the depression
that often comes when leaving home and moving to a new country, forced herself
to go to the gym to begin an exercise program after years of inactivity? Or that of my friend at home who is starting
a new master’s program in Folklore and Mythology while continuing her
challenging work as a government lawyer?
Or that of a high school friend who finds himself laid off from his job
of many years and is going to jump back into the world of job searching and
interviews? Whether by choice or
necessity, these folks are also pushing the boundaries of their comfort zones,
and I do not doubt that they will all be better people for having done it.
I am choosing my world-expanding activities with a
particular goal in mind—to take the most advantage I can of the new environment
in which I find myself. I’d be lying if
I said that Papua New Guinea was my first choice of places for us to go this
time around. In fact, I was presented
with a rather egregious “bait and switch” scenario when, during the bidding
process for this project, the home location for the job shifted from Fiji
(“Yes, let’s go!!”) to Port Moresby (“Umm, well, ok, I guess”). Once it was certain we would be here, I began
to look for the silver lining, the lifeline to keep me afloat and challenged
for the next few years. I quite easily
found the Moresby Arts Theatre and the Choral Society, but joining those could
hardly qualify as broadening my horizons as they are well within my wheelhouse
of competencies. But the very thought of
scuba diving made the center of my risk-adverse core begin to shake.
So I approached the idea of diving slowly, circling around
it carefully, all the while knowing I would talk myself into it eventually. First, I did some research on the diving
opportunities in and around Papua New Guinea.
As it turns out, this area has some of the most spectacular and
accessible dive sites in the world. Not
only are there coral reefs that are visible from my apartment balcony (did I
mention that I look out over the Coral
Sea?), but there are also numerous WWII wrecks, both ships and airplanes, that
can be explored on a day trip from Port Moresby. And unlike the Great Barrier Reef (which is
also easy to get to from here), the PNG diving is not overcrowded, so you can
really get to see the underwater life without interference from scores of scuba
tourists. Next, I talked to those who
have done extensive diving here and heard only of the spectacular sights to be
seen and the exhilaration of discovery. It
all sounded fantastic, so I signed up for a Professional Association of Diving
Instructors (PADI) Open Water Diver Certification course to get me on the road
to oceanic nirvana.
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| Equipment check--what can go wrong? |
If I thought I had lost my nervousness about diving before
taking the PADI course, it only took the first day of academic work to put the
fear of Neptune right back in me! I know
that the course is designed to prepare you for all the possibilities, however remote,
that might befall a person who knowingly and intentionally subjects themselves
to aquatic pressurization, but the multiple routes to disaster in diving seemed
endless—eardrum ruptures, lung over-expansion, hypothermia, dehydration (seems
counter-intuitive, but a real problem) loss of air, loss of equipment, loss of
mind (ok, it’s actually nitrogen narcosis, but it makes you feel kinda drunk
and stupid), and decompression sickness (“the bends”). And those are the things that presumably you
can control. There are also the
unpredictable…lionfish, jellyfish and all manner of sneaky, stingy camouflaged creatures,
as well as your run of the mill killer sharks and manta rays and..well, you get
the picture. I have to admit that it was
the fear of the things that I was supposed to be able to control that scared me
the most, not the sealife. What if I
panicked and forgot to breathe, or went up too fast or couldn’t find my
regulator? I would like to say that I had nothing to fear but fear itself, but
the course taught me otherwise.
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| Which is worse? Lionfish or sharks? |
But now I was invested.
I had purchased a prescription dive mask before arriving in PNG and had
spent good money on the PADI certification class. I had told everyone that I was going to do
it. So, with great trepidation, I went
off on the boat and took the plunge. I
nearly broke the wrist of my dive instructor, Thomas, as I held on with a death
grip while mentally repeating the mantra “this was a bad idea, this was a bad
idea” for the first ten minutes of the dive.
Had I been willing to concede failure, I probably would have gone right
back up the safety line and called it a day.
But breath, by deep, slow breath, I managed to calm down and began to
look around to see exactly what all the seasoned divers had described…an amazingly
beautiful, accessible, untouched world full of color, life and activity. And isn’t that what I was looking for in my
attempt to push my limits—keeping alive and active, both physically and
mentally.
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| My savior, Thomas, with his good remaining wrist |
I consider myself lucky on many levels because I know that I
am able to push myself the way that I do because I have a number of rock solid
lifelines, which I know I must always hold close. My husband, my children, my family, my
friends are all willing to support me in my risky (and not so risky)
endeavors. Just yesterday, I learned of
the death of my favorite uncle who, along with my father, his brother, provided
me with incredible inspiration for how to live a full and active life. Neither of them could sit still for a minute
(both probably would have been diagnosed as ADHD in today’s world) and both
refused to stop doing as much as they could for as long as they could. My father kept active until Parkinson’s
disease finally won out, but my Uncle Sager was able to play tennis right up to
the end at age 94. Like they both did,
when faced with the Shawshank choice to either “get busy living or get busy
dying” I choose to jump right in, but remember at all times where to find my
lifeline!
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| My real lifeline! |
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