The Deep Breath Before the Plunge

Oh man, hi there and welcome.

This first blog is probably going to be more just thought vomit than anything else. I want to document as much as I can about my process in training and learning for anyone else out there and just get some thoughts out of my mind along the way.

Maybe you'll have similar fears and worries?

I assume that the first question people will have is going to be "is this an actual career path you can do?" From what I have seen, yes! Either way I want it to be what I do. I've loved swimming forever and I used to pretend all the time to be a dolphin or mermaid growing up. My mom especially can attest to how hard it used to be to get me to leave the pool as a kid. So this just seemed like a natural progression of something to do.

I know a lot of people may wonder why I chose to do this and that's honestly a rather long story I'm unsure I want to dive into right now. The basics of it comes down to a lot of depression, the desire to do something different, and that in the water I feel more normal and less, disabled. I suffer from a lot of join pain for various reasons and mermaiding has become a way for me to not only still get some exercise in but has allowed me to feel normal and without pain again.

Honestly I think it was because of those limitations I never thought that this was something I could ever do. I certainly never felt pretty like a mermaid would either. Then I felt like I was too old or too big, or, or, or - there was always something stopping me and maybe I should dive into that a little bit.

The first block I had was, I can't hold my breath long. Well guess what? You can practice and learn how to do that! It takes time but you can do it so sucks to be you, get practicing cupcake! Seriously, I still suck at this really bad, on land I maybe can reach 30 seconds but under water I tend to maybe reach 15 and this is for a few reasons. First you have to know when you're moving around under water and have that water pressure pushing on you as well, it's harder than on land where you're just sitting still and practicing. However! Practice helps and even if it's slower than I'd like I still am getting better. When I started I would maybe do 5 seconds before I'd freak out and think I couldn't handle it. In the last few months I've already tripled that time so it's getting better for sure!

Another block I had was just that I don't know how to swim like that! There have been some great mermaids I've found online from all over the world that gave tutorials and things you can do on land even to practice and help. I'm getting better at that too and I find it a lot of fun to just practice swimming.

Now comes the self-deprecating blocks. I'm too ugly to be a mermaid. This is honestly something I still struggle a lot with. On one hand, yes I think I am still, I do not have a lot of love for myself. However on the other hand I have an immense amount of love for myself and think it doesn't matter anyways, mermaids come in all forms just like humans. If people want me to be their mermaid at a party then obviously they will like my appearance and it doesn't matter much what I think then, they like it, my own personal view aside. Those that don't, well they don't have to engage and can find a different mermaid.

I'm too fat to be a mermaid. Maybe some people will think so, maybe I think so as well, but also I tend to stop and take a step back when this thought comes to mind. A lot of the time I picture a child, even younger me standing in front of me asking if they can become a mermaid too. The answer is yes, no matter what I would never tell a child they're too anything to be a mermaid cause that's not true. If I would never tell even child me that then why should I be saying it to myself now?

I can't stand water up the nose or opening my eyes under water. Again, my precious merfolk, it's just practice. I never thought I could stand it either but I can. Granted I don't go long without a nose plug but I can do short bursts and I'm working to up that tolerance as well for both aspects.

The tails are too expensive! You don't need to start with a silicone tail or even a full fabric tail. If you can invest in a proper monofin to at least start getting in some practice then do that! The rest will come in time and once you are able to start taking on events you'll be able to invest in more. Start with a fin, add on a fabric cover and go from there.

I'm too old to be a mermaid. Internally I'm wanting to scream at myself cause how many times do we have to have questions pop up that we've already answered? Never the less this always came to mind too. There's no such thing cause of course mermaids age!

No one wants a nonbinary, trans mermaid. Or should I call myself merman? I dunno, I've always liked the term mermaid, it's sound prettier and more elegant. So yes, I am transitioning from female to male but I primarily use neutral pronouns, meaning they/them although he/him is fine too. However I'm not opposed to being called she/her if that's the persona my mermaid is. It's a complicated field to navigate some days but I think I'll end up having a few different mersona's eventually and they may all have varying types of genders from one another. To answer the question, whether someone wants that type of mermaid or not is up to them, not me and honestly why wouldn't a mermaid be non-binary or trans? Humans are beautifully diverse, fish are beautifully diverse and if a merperson is a combination of the two then they're going to be wonderfully diverse too.

So with all these obstacles in my mind sorted out, where was I to go from here? I decided to get a custom sized tail from FinFun. However my friends convinced me not to and to wait, don't worry, it's good that they did! They surprised me on my birthday with one! I was so happy and I'm so excited whenever I get to go practice in my monofin. I'm looking now at getting myself a silicone monofin since, to be honest the fabric ones from FinFun break down super quick. Maybe it's just me but I have 2 of them and both started to get holes in them after only a few uses. I'm not talking holes where you'd expect like the tips or heels where you might rub on the pool sides or bottom, I'm talking everywhere, along ever seam and even just in the middle of the fluke on the top of bottom. So yeah, while I still think they're great to start with, they are not something you will be using for more than a maybe six months in my opinion.

I guess welcome to my journey, I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I do and I hope we all get to learn and grow from each other!