Personal Narrative: Swim Lessons Of My Life

When I was younger my parents gave me the opportunity to take swim lessons. They said that they wanted to see me tread the same waters that most every other kid enjoyed playing in. Within days I was able to stop sitting in the shallow end, but I was able to frolic with my friends over the grounds I could not touch. This was the only time they wanted me to be similar to an ordinary child. Any other time, I heard the words “Try a little harder. Go a little faster. Learn a little more.”, because being average was never part of their plan. It wasn’t until my highschool years that I realized that those swim lessons had less to do with enjoyment, but more to do with surviving.
During my sophomore year I got my first real taste of the salty waters

we call “school”. My Advanced Placement Physics class was the emblem of dedication I would need for all future classes. After countless hours of nightly, which ended in a failed final test, I began to feel like school was nothing more than a rat race. Since I will not accept defeat, I told myself that I would only try harder the following year. The decision was to swim a little farther despite risk.
Signing up for a load of demanding classes, my friends told me “Don’t swim farther than you can return”. Selling myself short was not an option though, I wanted to prove to myself that I could excel. Although I had a positive outlook, that was not enough to keep me above water. In addition to the taxing classes that were weights around my ankles, competition for scholarships also joined in to try to pull me under. Sometimes the question comes to mind if the burdens I chose to bear were a mistake and will only drag me to the bottom.