My earliest memory
When I was three I almost drowned.
My parents and I had packed our bags and gone on holiday to Morocco for 7 days, just to catch on the heat and as we lived in England and there wasn't much of that around. My mum was pregnant with younger sister and I was lonely, as I was only three and did not have any 'friends'. It was difficult make valuable connections with other people as I was still not exactly a novice at speaking.
On the very last day of the holiday, on the way to the airport, we stopped off at a swimming pool and decided to wait there, just after given the notice that our plane was delayed. So, without our costumes or anything, we decided to sit and relax and simple enjoy our last day in Morocco. I, without any previous swimming experience, decided to enjoy it a bit more.
I remember the day as if it were shown in a movie. I could see myself in third person, which is the weirdest thing for me. I didn't look like myself. Instead I seemed like a blurred face: just a grin and a flurry of hands and a quiet stillness that exerts a feeling you could only feel if you listened to Yusuf at 1am. Like an afterthought, something that part of me was desperately trying to forget. I don't know.
That day at the swimming pool was crowded I think. There were definitely a lot of people there, many families were waiting for the plane, just like we were. lot's of families were not. There were two girls there definitely. They were only a few years older but to me they seemed like adults, people that I could follow, people that I would follow. They were swimming, and I wished so terribly to do the same.
So, when one of them decided to line up by the edge of the pool, I naturally decided to follow.
This is the bit that I remember the clearest. I can remember the hot temperature brushed on my skin, I can remember the cool water dipping at my toes, I can remember hearing a bird in the sky and looking up at it. I remember everything about that moment and strangely, to this day, I still don't regret it.
Because in that moment, I remember jumping. Following them into the water except, unlike them, I didn't come back up again.
I sat at the bottom of the pool.
I could see the shapes of people above.
I could hear my parents' screams.
I can remember smiling.
Don't do stuff that other people are doing, just because they are doing it. Please, it ends badly, and usually you feel like you aren't being true to yourself. Don't do something that you believe will hurt you. Stay individual, do what you want to do.
And don't forget to swim back up.