The Quest For A Diving Board (And Feeling Young)

Okay this post is two-fold. First let me say that we lived very "blessed" lives in the eyes of the world. We live in a great suburb, in a fairly upscale neighborhood, and our temporal needs are more than met. I feel so fortunate to live somewhere safe, beautiful, and where we have good schools.

Now, all that being said, a part of me has been discontent for a long time. I'm not unhappy, but there is this discontentment that has been there the entire time I've been a parent. While my kids may have been born into a life of comfort, I sometimes feel they are missing out on experiences that our current society is taking from them. I feel this the most in the summers. Okay, okay. I'm back on the pool thing again. No swim team or pool can ever be as great as what I experienced growing up. (There are other things too but the focus of this post is in the pool.)

My older girls, who just finished their 5th year on swim team, cannot really dive into the water. Why? Well, part of it is their own fear. But the other part is they are not allowed to dive anywhere, except at swim team, but at swim team they are mostly just practicing laps. Hardly the time to experiment with what you can do. When swim team is over, we are not members at the pool so we have to leave. Every other pool we have access to has a no diving policy (our neighborhood just opened its third and this time massive pool). Why must we rob everyone of this? (Yes I know WHY but I don't like it. Let us live life!)

I LOVED the diving board! So we may put in a pool soon, but the one thing I will have is a diving board, even if it is a dinky backyard diving board. Or we may just move. But most houses with pools do not have diving boards either. There is a diving board graveyard somewhere close by I think where all the great diving boards of all the once glorious pools are just stacked up and rotting, wishing to be used again.

Except this one neighborhood. We are seriously considering moving there. I have envied this neighborhood ever since living in our own community. Ironically they have the same developers. But I like theirs so much better! I think it's just more "us." But we never considered it before because it is far. Too far. We just could never do it. And all this time I have envied those who live there, even though I knew I couldn't do it.

Well, a few months ago we took a friend home to that neighborhood and discovered new houses closer in were being built - houses that we would actually move for (because we like our house now for the most part). And new roads were opening up. Suddenly this neighborhood has become a possibility. And the best part - they have a community swim team and lap pool, along with their already amazing water slides, bucket pool, etc., and they have not one, not two, but THREE diving boards! Two low dives and one high dive! I can't get it out of my head. I want that community for my family, once and for all.

In the meantime, I borrowed some pool tags from a friend for another pool around here that has one tiny, very little bounce diving board. I have literally tried finding pools with diving boards and every time I find one I come up empty because we don't have any way to get access. So we have gone to this pool a couple of times. And can I tell you, not only did my kids have fun just jumping off, doing flips, TRYING to dive, playing categories, but I got on that thing too (the second part of my post).

First I did real flying dives! Wow how good that felt! And then I even did a back dive - haven't done one of those in probably 20 years. It felt great - I feel so free and young. I don't need bungee jumping and zip lining to feel young and like I'm living. Just give me a diving board!!