QUICK; ACT LIKE YOU BELONG

“gllaarphh” I sputtered as I inhaled freezing sea water. Why couldn’t we just stay on land? Human beings are supposed to stay on land. Right? Something about scuba diving was innately wrong. While frantically spinning my feet to keep myself afloat, I tried to seem like I was loving this “fun activity” which in retrospect I would describe as “drowning”. I wanted to impress the adventurous, young, hip people who were all sitting on the scuba boat, so I maintained an expression of “excitement and wonder” as opposed to “wistfully looking towards shore”. Just keep cool Sophie. Just pretend you’re a fish or a piece of kelp, calm down.
The scuba instructor motioned for me to start my slow descent. I nodded with feigned excitement, gripped my oxygen mask and pressed it against my face. My life was in the hands of a respirator that likened breathing to laying facedown on the ground and inhaling through grass. I choked and sputtered as an attempt to shove my face into the water earned demeaning glances from the already scuba-certified family, of which both parents were Harvard Professors and had brought their own wetsuits.
I looked over at my sister, who, in spite of having suggested this fun family excursion with unnecessary enthusiasm, had a look of unprecedented fear as she was next in line to make the descent. I swam over to her, accidentally sucking too much air from the respirator and coughed into her ear, “Don’t worry, let’s just pretend we’re mermaids.” “Sophie, are you five years old?” she exasperatedly responded. “Just do it!”, I pushed.
I flippered over to the surprisingly patient instructor, and attempted my dive for the second time. I submerged and my panic increased. If you have ever seen a small child get so upset or frustrated that they immediately start taking off all of their clothes, then you can understand my mental state halfway down to the coral reef shelf. Now that my respirator was absolutely necessary, I wanted to rip it off, along with the oxygen tank, which had a weight comparable to that of around three IB-program backpacks.
As my family followed suit, we eventually began our underwater tour as the boat sped away, taking the composed Harvard family to a dive that was out of the capabilities of loud, incompetent families.
I abstained from having any more mental crises and succeeded in accidentally stepping on some beautiful coral. It also wasn’t hard at all to pretend to be a mermaid, just one with benign respiratory issues.