When I was very little, I used to take up my father’s keys and hold a specific one in my mouth, with the tip of my tongue searching for and flinching from the metallic taste that was almost a sting. I would hold it there until I felt I was drowning in that tang, until I felt tears welling up, until I thought I would never be able to taste anything but that again.

When I was a bit older, I learned from a herd of cows that fear could swamp me, flood me, narrow my vision and make it impossible to feel anything else. Somewhere in there, I learned that stillness could save me, that I could summon up a black wall of ice around my heart that would freeze my fear and let me be calm.

In a college swimming pool, on a bright Florida morning, I learned that I could find that stillness again, without the ice. That as long as I could go past struggling, through the fear, I would find air.

These days, the struggle is not for air, but for words. This journal is the proof and the reminder that sometimes, I succeed.