Flippin' Out!

Today, I did something I have NEVER. DONE. IN. 38. YEARS.

But always wanted to do.

I executed a very ugly, very sloppy front flip --- then back flip---  dive off the diving board at the pool.

When I was a teenager, I used to watch one of my BFF's, Kelly Miller Brough, on the dive team. And she could take her slender, athletic body and contort it in all fashions of twists and flips off the diving board. Kelly went on to Harvard, and I might be making this up, because high school was five, twenty years ago, with a diving scholarship. My summer boyfriend, Jimmy Dameron, was also on the dive team, and he had a hang time on a forward dive that would make Tony Hawk envious.

But I never tried to dive. Probably because my adolescent angst was crippling.Or my pink and white tropical print, ruffled bikini was MUCH cuter than the navy blue industrial dive team uniforms.

Neither should have mattered.

Was I destined to be a great diver? Nope. Probably not. But I NEVER. TRIED.

I don't know what possessed me today.

Baby steps in living without fear (thank you, Max Lucado), but I just went up on the diving board and flung myself in the abyss. The pool, that is. Landed FLAT on my back. I came up sputtering and laughing so hard I could hardly swim to the side. Then I did it again. And again. And again. I didn't improve much. So I tried a back flip. My face landed parallel to the salt water. I didn't care. I tried it.

I had DREAMED about beautiful dives. Calculated them in my sleep to where I knew exactly how much force I needed to do a complete back flip in layout position with a no-splash entry into the pool.

Of course it didn't happen that way.

But it doesn't matter.

I tried.

No fear.