***You can also view this story, as told by me, on my Facebook Live video, entitled “The Day I Learned to Swim”, which I’ve attached at the bottom of this post.

So anyway, I finally just decided to jump in. I thought I’d start by talking about the picture I chose for my cover photo on the One Saved Penny Facebook page. It’s actually a really interesting choice for me, given that I really don’t even like this photo very much.

When I look at it, I don’t feel beautiful. It doesn’t make me feel particularly happy. So why would I choose this photo as the center of my new page? Well, the day this photo was taken also happened to be a very important day of my life.

Let me take you back to August of 2016. During this time, I really felt that my life was falling apart. Across the board, I was at an all-time low. My relationships, or rather, lack of relationships, friendships, my finances, my health, my career, my general feeling of self-worth, basically my entire life felt like it was taking a dive into the deep abyss. I decided at one point that I needed to get away, to get back to my happy place, Daytona Beach. One day, I just decided that we were going to take a vacation. I asked my kids if they wanted to go, and obviously they did. I asked my boss, and even though it was only three weeks notice, he agreed to let me take the time off. Looking back, I’m sure he realized that it was also in his best interest to let me go, as I was pretty worthless at that time.

After making some phone calls, I found an airline that would get the three of us to and from Daytona Beach for a mere $100 per person, each way. Maybe this is standard for some of you travelers, but for me, this was an unbelievable find. I also found a rental car for something insanely affordable, like less than $25 per day. I contacted the condo owner where we had stayed in the past. Not only did he have our exact beach-front unit available, but it was only $56 per night! Although the entire trip was very affordable, it was still a big stretch for my budget. At this point, I was thinking to myself that we had no choice but to go. So I reached into my wallet, pulled out my shiny red Visa card, and booked all of it.

The moment we arrived, we threw on our swimsuits, took the elevator down, and ran straight out the back door to the beach and ocean. I was in the water up to my waist, just standing and looking around at the scenery. I turned to look back at the condo behind us as the sun was beginning to set behind the building. It was truly beautiful and peaceful. But suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a huge wave rolled in behind me and took me down and into the water. It literally knocked the wind out of me, and I jammed my finger on the ocean floor. I felt like I was going to lose my sunglasses right off my face, and I remember holding onto my phone for dear life. It felt like I was under water for an eternity, when in reality, it was probably just a few seconds. When I came up, my nose, eyes, and throat were burning from the salt water. I was sputtering and staggering all over the place. To make matters worse, when I finally looked back over my shoulder, there were my two kids, barely able to stay above the water themselves as they were laughing so hard at me. I can’t blame them. To them, it was funny. I was in shallow water and it wasn’t a big deal at all. But what most people don’t realize is that when you don’t know how to swim, even those few moments of lost control is absolutely terrifying.

After regaining my composure, I stayed on the beach while my kids played in the water a bit longer. We then agreed it was time to go back up to the pool. I let them get in while I went back up to the room to get water, snacks, and pool floats (you can never be too careful, you know!) I had all of our goodies stacked in my arms when I got back on the elevator. There were two older women who were also riding down, and one of them was teasing me a little bit about my arm load of pool floats. I’m pretty sure she thought they were for my kids, but for reasons I cannot explain, I came clean and told a complete stranger that I couldn’t swim and about what had happened earlier. Her response to me was, “That is perfectly unacceptable, and today, you are going to learn to swim.” Ummmmm . . . . Ok. I mean, she really didn’t give me a choice, and I didn’t try to put up a fight. I really do not have an explanation for any of it. This was a complete stranger, and I never even got the woman’s name. In my head, after the fact, I have named her Janice. She really reminded me of the old burnout supermodel, Janice Dickinson (before the Botox and botched plastic surgery – see below). Just a normal person, who happened to have been a beach lifeguard for 40 years. She had nothing else going on that day, so she reconfirmed that she was going to teach me how to swim.

As soon as we got back to the pool patio, we dumped all of our belongings, and got into the pool at about the 5 foot level. We were hanging out and chatting in the water for a few minutes when I glanced over and saw both of my kids looking at me with complete confusion on their faces. No doubt, they were wondering what in the hell was going on with their mother, as they both knew well from experience that 1) mom doesn’t get into the pool without her floats, and 2) she doesn’t talk to random strangers. At that moment, I had to completely detach myself and give Janice my full attention and let the rest of the world disappear.

You guys, she was so good. Every time I made an excuse as to why I was afraid, or why I couldn’t swim, she just said, “That’s not real. You’ve made all this up in your head. Nobody would have told you that. Where did you even get these crazy ideas?” For instance, I told her that I couldn’t put my face in the water because I couldn’t form a seal to keep the water from getting into my nose and throat. She was so confused by my excuses and basically told me that I was making things way harder than they needed to be. She explained to me that nobody “makes a seal”, but they just simply close their mouth and do not inhale while they are under the water. Huh. She gave me lots of other pointers, and by the end of the day I was swimming! Was it pretty? No. Was it perfect? No. But was I swimming in the deep end? YES!

Looking back, I know I didn’t realize at that time what an impact Janice was making on my life. It wasn’t just about swimming either. I mean, it’s pretty embarrassing when you are the only adult on the boat wearing a life jacket. (For the record, I still wear a life jacket on boats, because you just never know what could happen. Maybe one day I will graduate out of the life jacket.) Anyway – she basically told me some things I have been looking back at over the last year, and I’ve realized that maybe she wasn’t just teaching me how to swim in the water, but also how to keep my head above the water when I felt like I was drowning on a daily basis. As soon as we got home, I made a list of some of the things she said to me that day while she was teaching me to swim:

1. Don’t think about it. Just decide to do it and then do it. So basically, everything I’ve been doing all these years – making excuses and talking myself out of doing things – was squelched with this one simple piece of advice. I might also add that this was what made me decide to jump in and write this first post!
2. Don’t make things more difficult than they need to be. Pretty sure I was the master at this.
3. Ask for help when you need it. Or in this case, accept help when it is offered to you.
4. Get a cheering section who will make you feel like you can do anything. Looking back, I can see now how proud my kids were when I took that first swim across the deep end of the pool. Jacob even took a video so we could send it to my sister. I still smile when I see that video on my phone!
5. It doesn’t have to look perfect or fancy. Just do it.
6. Relax and breathe to keep your head above the water. Duh, right? But yeah, I guess I didn’t know that and I was definitely not doing it in regular life either. Instead, I felt anxiety and panic, and a general feeling of drowning in my daily life.
7. Look at the sky and just relax, breathe, and look at how beautiful it is.

Let me tell you that I have used that advice, ALL of that advice, ever since that day. It was the advice that led me to form One Saved Penny. It’s the advice that helped me see the way my negative thoughts and excuses were ruining my life. And it’s the advice that changed my life for the better. It’s the reason for the cover photo I chose for the Facebook page. And it’s the reason I want to share my experiences and struggles and learning moments with others. I hope you’ll all jump in the deep end with me and paddle around for a bit!

-Penny