Cold water from a 'hot' tub, hot only in name, waterfalls into colder water. The sun isn't hot enough for this. My swimsuit is the wrong size. At the slightest hint that anybody may be looking at it, I contort myself into ridiculous shapes to keep myself from falling out of it. I still feel odd in a swimsuit, because I know that in Jayapura I could, and would, have been arrested immediately for wearing it. So when a friendly man appears in the door of the clubhouse and asks if I want a mat for my deck chair, my mind processes it as gibberish. Quick Indonesian, maybe. I yank my towel up over my body. He laughs because he thinks I am shy. Shy is... perhaps the wrong word for it. Running away from my social issues into the pool is not an option, because it is freezing. Truly freezing, despite the sun having warmed it all day. Why would you air-condition an outdoor pool in Georgia in springtime?

I used to think people who could just sprint into freezing water just didn't feel temperatures as much as I did. I used to think people who could get cavities filled without novocaine had a higher pain threshold than me. I used to think people who could dance in clubs didn't have to practice; that they just automatically knew how to move. I used to think people who could party-hop for hours - days! - didn't ever get lonely, or overwhelmed. One or the other. I used to think that people who could get on airplanes, on stage, go to work, to school, while vomiting with the stomach flu just didn't feel as sick as I did when I had it. I used to think that other people didn't feel overwhelmed and exhausted when they climbed mountains.

I was wrong. People can just handle things. I've never been great at handling things - it's an only child thing. Only children don't have to handle. Their families revolve around them. Their preferences are the only ones taken into account. They don't have to do things they don't want to, or share their possessions with people. If they hedge and consider and take forever to make decisions, their families will wait. It's a bad way to grow up. No, actually, it's a great way to grow up. But it's a bad thing to take away with you when you have to become a grown-up.

Thinking about all of this is strangely relevant with my big toe trembling on the pool steps. Just jump in. Just jump in. It will be cold and that's okay.

Inching forward and willing myself to keep going, steady, not hesitating or rising up on my toes or yanking my hands out of the water or, worse, retreating. I do it. Make no noise. Distorted just under the surface, my goosebumped forearms look like Popeye's.

I wish I knew how to swim, that someone would show up and teach me. My form is spectacularly bad. It takes me minutes to do the pool crosswise, and I arrive out of breath and - oddly - vertical. My stroke is unrecognizable as anything with a name. I would have drowned had I swum in the ocean more than 5 times in Indonesia. But I love water. Even cold water. Even cold, boring, chlorine-choked pool water, or red-tinged scary stormy tropical water, or muddy brown sluggish water possibly containing crocodiles, or early-June Lake Michigan water clogged with alewive. Once a fortune teller told me I would never be happy unless I lived by water. Of course, she also told me I'd be dead by age 21.