Diving Out

Throw me in the deep end, I am ready now to swim - Holly Humberstone

I have always been afraid of the deep end. The dark, looming water with unknown creatures lurking beneath. I remember having swimming lessons when I was younger. I remember the basics, floating and that weird move where you whip your hands over your head. Whenever my swim instructor would ask if I wanted to go into the deep end, I would run the other direction. I hated the thought of being swallowed and not seeing solid ground under my feet. I hated not feeling stable and safe.

I still feel this way, years later. My best friend tried to convince me to learn since we have a pool at our apartment, but I’ve always declined. Nothing about the water enchants me as it does with others. For me, it presents a form of doom and darkness. It is the perfect manifestation of my fear of change and how the unknown has always scared me.

One thing about the ocean, though, (especially living in Australia) is that you can’t avoid it. The number of times my friends have suggested a beach or lake trip, and I’ve had to remind them that my swimming experience is zero, is quite embarrassing. There is something about large bodies of water that makes me physically uncomfortable, and, of course, I’m scared of drowning – but there is more to it. I’m scared of what’s underneath, the fish, the crocodiles, the way that if you take the wrong step you could die. I’m scared of what I can’t control, the current and waves.

I think I have always been afraid of what I can’t control. Growing up, my life was messy in a way it shouldn’t be for a child. There were many times I didn’t have reassurance and didn’t have faith in the environment around me. So to manage that I controlled many things, how much I ate, my appearance and my grades at school. I also tried to control my future, in Year 9 I had already outlined my career and had goals I wanted to achieve. By Year 9, I knew I wanted to leave Sydney and go to what I had declared the best university out of state but still close to home.

I had always wanted to leave, escape a place I had never really felt myself, a place I had never felt fully in control. I thought in Canberra I could reinvent myself and take charge of my life. Nowhere in my plans did I think that things would not work out the way I planned. Well, what could go wrong? This false idealised version of my life had to work out the way I expected, right?

COVID-19.

Something I had never really planned for (well who plans for a worldwide pandemic?) was COVID-19. It was horrendous. I was supposed to be going to in-person classes, getting full marks in all my courses and also losing weight. None of those things happened in 2020. If anything, I went the opposite way, and I was hard on myself for not meeting my expectations. I was mean to myself, in a way no one should be in a pandemic, or ever really. I wish I had given myself the attention and care I needed at that time.

Instead of diving into the water, I had taken slow steps and prepared myself for the cold and change. But I also assumed that the temperature of the water would be what I wanted and that there wouldn’t be any waves or scary fish in sight. I took my time, attempting to get comfortable with the water, and before I knew it a wave had sent me spinning into its dark depths. I couldn’t find solid ground, and for most of 2020 I fought against the current, tiring myself out and struggling to keep my head above water. I was angry that the water, a being completely out of my control, had not tamed itself for me.

Dive.

I have never liked diving, I have never liked the idea of jumping into the unknown. Every time I would hit the water, my body would scream at me: the cold, the shock was always too much. In 2020 I took my time, but in 2021 I was so overwhelmed by the currents that I almost shut down and let the water take me away. In 2022, I’ve been doing the same and I’m still completely unprepared for these changes.

So when will I be prepared? When will I be able to control the uncontrollable? Never. So now all I want to do is dive, let the water crash into me and experience all that shock and pain at once. Let my body get used to the warmth and comfort the water shows me without being overwhelmed when a current pushes me around. Once the current slows down and the water is calm, I can appreciate the beauty around me. I can appreciate how completely natural the water is, how completely natural change and not being in control is.

Maybe I can live life the way it was meant to be, jumping into every new opportunity and accepting the change as it comes. I may say that 2020 and 2021 were the hardest years of my life. Although, if I’m being honest, I don’t have any regrets. Except maybe, I should have just embraced the water, stopped fighting so hard against the current and enjoyed the journey. I am now ready to dive into the deep end, enjoy the scary waves and float.

Putting it lightly, this semester has been tough.

I don’t know anyone at this university who isn’t academically exhausted, socially strained, and under immense pressure to work. We’re all dealing with the intellectual, mental, and financial reality of student burnout. Pushing towards the end of my second year, I thought I’d have figured out how to manage the juggling act of competing priorities. But, after a turbulent start to the semester, I found that my typical approaches to finding calm in this swirling ocean weren’t working. Slipping under the waves, it was clear something wasn’t right. So before I reached week four, I dived out, taking a much-needed pause on my life in Canberra.

I headed back to my hometown of Busselton, in regional WA, to spend some time with my family. It’s a comfortably small town known for being quiet and boasting the longest timberpiled jetty in the southern hemisphere. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been able to take part in the things I always feel like I’m missing out on while studying so far away.

Like seeing the closing night of my brother’s last school play or celebrating my dad’s birthday with him. I’ve had countless conversations with other interstate students about how many of these small moments we tend to miss. Each one adds to a mountain of homesickness, wearing away our ability to benefit from the opportunities we came to Canberra for in the first place.

Being able to unwind has done wonders for my state of mind. But I’m aware that this drastic option isn’t a reliable one. I’m going to have to keep working on figuring out how to manage the stressors of my life at university. But I also must stress that my situation is far from unique. In a recent survey of UK undergraduates, almost half - 48 percent - stated that they’d considered or had dropped out of university due to financial pressures. In addition to this, the pandemic, and rising cost of living crisis have exposed clear inadequacies in the support structures accessible to students.