The page was blank, except for one word. That word blinded me to all other words.  I focused on it, and thought about it. What was this page? This page was the entry into my one of my first loves. The page proudly displayed all the activities, classes, and camps that my swim club offered. And that one word that stuck out to me? DIVING!
“Ready to go, Kait?” my mom hollered from the kitchen. It’s funny how one sound can wake you from your thoughts. It isn’t like it takes fifty words to wake someone, in some cases it just takes one. In this case that one word for me is my name, it always wakes me from whatever trance I may be in. today my trance was me being deep in thought about diving. I had never dove before, and I was very excited, but nervous at the same time: Nervsited.  Feet tingling and hands rubbing my eyes I got out of bed. My eyes were just now adjusting to the bright summer day as I walked into the kitchen for breakfast.

 I had to be at diving at 8:30 sharp. The coach, who I will call Coach Z, was the first NCAA woman diver from UofL to compete in a NCAA tournament. For some odd reason I felt as if the amount of pressure I had to exceed at this camp was the amount of an elephant on my shoulder.

“What if I don’t like it?” “What if I am not good at it?” all these thoughts rushed through my head as I ate my eggs that my dad had made. My mom finally convinced me to calm down and to believe in myself. She told me everything would be okay, and I believed her (rightfully so).

  The walk from the edge of our house to the car felt like a mile and the drive to practice felt like five hours when in reality they both accumulated to about fifteen minutes. As I got to the pool the bright June sun shone on the blue water and made it look as if it was an ocean on a winter morning, cool, blue, and gleaming with sunlight. Even though it was eight in the morning I was forced to put on sunscreen, which I hate.

  Coach Z: nice, kind, strict, helpful; all around seems like I will really like her. I did. She first taught us how to properly jump backward and forwards into the water with an arm swing and an approach, at the time this didn’t seem like a big deal but in the long run staying straight and hollow while jumping off of tall structures is a useful tool to have.  As I got ready for each new try the sun welcomed me onto the board and the water glistened with hope for a new love. Just like the water grew warmer through practice so did my love for the sport.

About halfway through the practice coach told us that we were going to learn our first official dive.
“Everybody ready?” she said brightly, just like her personality. “All you gotta do is do your hurdle to the end of the board, jump straight up, tuck and go in: head first.” She said, as if it was the simplest thing ever: which it was honestly. This wasn’t even a hard dive in any means, but from the look on everyone’s faces you could’ve believed that we saw a ghost. 

“It might be cold but you just have to take a leap and jump in!” she said encouragingly. Honestly I don’t know what lit the fire inside of me, but ever since I was little I have always wanted to be first and always do my best. Therefore naturally I wanted to do it first, whether that was the best decision or not at the time it has definitely proved to be the best decision in the long run.

I remember that the only thoughts that I had as I left the board was: “Yay, uh oh!” Then there was the water on my face. The pain only lasted for about one sec and all I felt after that was happiness. As soon as I got out the water my coach asked me how I was, naturally I was fine, actually better than fine.

My mom picked me up after that practice that day. “How was practice, did you love it?!”

“Great, I LOVE it, can I go again?!” That is what I said when my mom asked me then and it is what I have continued to say each day since then.