Head-first.

Growing up, my parent's friends used to joke we were like little fish, us girls who spent most of our free time in the pool or ocean, swimming and playing. I wasn't a fish though, none of us were.

It was a stereotypical sunny day at a Florida waterpark, I was about ten years old and unafraid of water in any quantity, depth or turmoil. There were three height options to choose from, in which cliff you wanted to jump off of.

I wanted the highest cliff they offered-- 50 feet, so I waited in line with my Twin.

Along the slatted path of ramps and periodic stairs up to the top, there where signs everywhere advising guests how to jump. NO DIVING emphasized big and bold with little pictures to make sure there was no confusion.

Oh, there was no confusion. I understood perfectly. You could easily break your neck if you hit the water wrong-- but I also felt like those signs where akin to the ones next to a pool advising you the water is too shallow to dive, when really you  could dive in the shallows, you just had to arch your back and shoulders up as soon as you hit the water.

I was an experienced swimmer. I had half a decade under my belt in a wide variety of aquatic situations. I'd passed every mermaid test my older sister and her friends came up with. I could hold my breath almost three-minutes if I was still and calm enough. I could swim a mile out into the big-bad ocean and back without drowning. I had this.

The whole way to the top I considered my dive.

"They can't stop me, once I jump .. that's it, I'm off, no turning back." I rationalized. "Treat it like a shallow dive so you don't go too deep," I told myself, "worst case, you swim to the bottom and push off to surface faster." A repeated mantra thought whenever the conversation with my Twin tapered.

At the top, there's a Park Attendant vocally reminding jumpers of all ages, to cross their arms over their chest and jump feet first. Most of them did, only a few flailed their arms out in a reactive impulse. When it was my turn, I nodded doe-eyed and innocent as I was given the same speech, pausing on the line in compliance, waiting for the previous jumper to clear the water.

It was in those moments, as I took a few breathes to prepare myself, that my heart began to race like a Thoroughbred out of the Kentucky Derby gate. Even now I'm not sure if I was more excited about diving off a 50 foot cliff, or diving off a 50 foot cliff because it was against the rules.

When I was given the go-ahead, my smirky-side-glance was the only warning the Park Attendant got before I sprang off the edge of the cliff with my arms out like the Olympic divers I'd seen on TV.

The fall didn't even seem to take a full second.

My hands pierced the water first, as intended, it was a good dive but with such momentum on impact I couldn't hold the formation, or arch my back like I'd meant to. I let myself coast to a stop in the water, glancing up past my feet I could tell I was deeper down than I thought I'd be. My child mind thought about it for a moment before I took a few breast-strokes further into the blue, thinking I could spring up and save myself some effort; only, in doing so, I realized it was arguably a further swim to the bottom than the light above...

I misjudged everything.

"ShitShitShit!" I thought, a tick of panic which burned up more oxygen than I had to spare, making my swim to the surface that much more of a challenge.

As I righted myself I desperately wished for a breath of air, yet had no idea how much more I'd crave it before I broke the water-line. Hands cupped like little paddles, I carved them in toward my chest and hooked out with as much even-power as I could manage, trying to establish a pace... five, six, and seven strokes in I felt the panic creeping back.

Eight, nine and ten, I didn't seem to be any closer to the flickering light of daylight I was swimming toward. I began to question if I had enough air in my lungs to make it, yet I kept swimming, determined not to stop until my face was out of the water. Somewhere between strokes fifteen and twenty, I lost the ability to count.

I could feel my lungs shrinking with the lack of breath, willing me to inhale and fill them again. I grit my teeth and continued to paddle, helpless to observe my pace faltering with the ache of muscles running low on oxygen. Helpless to prevent the frown trying to pull my lips apart or the lump in my throat threatening to finish the choking I'd already started.

I could tell by then, I was closer to the surface but it still looked so far away. I knew I didn't really have enough breath in my lungs to make it. I knew I was going to start feeling the vacuum of need grip my chest with the convulsion to inhale. "Don't do it." I thought, "Don't you do it.." thought with anger and desperation. Swimming like a teeter-todder because I could no longer coordinate my arms to work together.

When I ascended high enough in the water it began to look more shallow, bright and clear, there was hope. It snuck up on me the same way the fog of a blackout seemed to be rolling in, yet it was just enough hope to will me onward, "Just keep swimming," I told myself, like 'Finding Nemo' long before the movie came out. While I had the will to make it to the surface, my body was fighting for the ability to complete my journey.

My arms and legs started to shake with every hooking paddle and kicking push, like a car engine sputtering on fumes. The sucking sensation in my lungs began to extend to the rest of my body, up my neck clamping around the urge to cry, which only seemed to make my need to breathe more pressing. As I felt my head start to throb to the cadence of my war-drum of a heart and my body jolt with the compulsive need to suck in air, I couldn't keep my fingers together to cup the water anymore.

"Don't do it, don't, don't do it, just don't even open your mouth" I thought as my swimming became more frantic, more like clawing and climbing through the cool embrace of chlorinated waters. Those last few seconds were choppy with mini-black-outs and skewed perception, somewhere amid which I'd opened my mouth. Convulsing like a fish on a deck I felt a little water break the choked seal of my throat and I thought I was done for.

The violent desperation to breathe forced me to use one hand to plug my nose and to give up whatever stale air I had left in those caving windbags to clear the water from my throat and lungs. I felt like my entire body was going to implode...

But it didn't.

Somehow, I made it, I broke the surface with a gasping thrash that filled my lungs so fast I choked on it. I had to cough a few times to open my windpipe back up and when I did the sudden flow of air made my head spin.

"You okay?" The Lady Lifegaurd asked, standing up on her perch over the waters, no longer shaded by her umbrella. One of many who seemed to be on their toes waiting for me to pop up.

"I'm good!" I yelled as if I hadn't just been swimming for my life.

"No more jumping for you." She shouted back plainly, not bothering to chastise me for diving.

"Yeah, no-shit Lady" I thought, waving my hand at her instead, and then swimming across the surface toward the stairs as quickly as my shaky and tired body would let me.

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