Thanks for using my photo for this blog post (and using the attribution back to its Flickr page).

I am actually a long-time swimmer, having swam competitively as a child and then swimming in college for a division 1 program. I absolutely love to swim – as a sport, as an exercise, as stress relief.

I still swim now on a master’s team, and similar to what John recommended above, I suggest you find a master’s swim club in your area. Masters teams have a range of abilities and experience levels, and there are a lot of people who are looking for just basic instruction. It’s also helpful to be around others in a similar situation – there’s a lot of encouragement and learning from each other that can happen as well.

I see that you’re in the Seattle area, and this is the list of swim clubs in the Pacific Northwest area who are registered with the US Masters Swimming organization: http://www.swimpna.org/where_to_swim.htm

Let us know how it goes!

just a few lessons will definitely give you the instruction to improve your stroke and I strongly suggest having a friend video you from the deck, to help you see your stroke from outside the water… it’s something my coach does and it’s helped me enormously. we just use my normal canon point-and-shoot and video a little 30 second clip of me swimming a couple of laps, that’s enough for me to see everything I need.

Good point about importance. I’ve often found that things I think I want aren’t always what I really want.

If you don’t already have a financial plan for the present and future, you could find a good planner to guide you. If you already have a plan, a planner could double-check your numbers and help allay fears. Your daughter should be a part of all of this too. Also, at the end of each semester she should evaluate how she feels about her major and her post-college plans. You don’t want to get too far into a college program and then find out it’s not really what you want.

I don’t think there is any preparation in high school to help students decide what to study and how that will play out after college. I changed my major (and college) once and would have done it a second time if I’d had the money.

@John,

Thanks so much for doing all that research! Wow. I’ll check up on all these ideas when I get back home in two weeks.

I’m headed out this afternoon on my final “big trip” of 2008. Does anyone have any feedback for Val?

(Val, I admire your hard work and desire to embrace the amazingness of the world, in the midst of challenging circumstances. Feel free to write in on my Contact page sometime.)

First, thanks for your articles, I found “you” about a month ago and have gone through the archives and enjoyed all the current things. This article was one that I had to respond to. I am living my life without regrets right now in a lot of ways but it is exhausting and frightening at times.

An overview: I was working full time, going to school part time for a masters in elementary ed, for the last two years. Then this semester I had to go to part time work due to part time student teaching required (in January I will quit work to full time student teach). So at this time I work 24 hours a week getting paid, work two more days as a student teacher, take 2 masters classes a week (required to qualify for student loans).

Then I have a daughter just starting college and she choose a private and expensive one – good choice in the long run but filling me with fear as she and I are both having to take out student loans. I wanted her to do this because I do not want her to have any regrets or have to be 40 something and going to school for the profession that is her desire-as I am. One reason for my draw to your blog is that I have a huge desire to have no debt, live simply and with contentment. I want to always embrace the amazingness (word?) of what I am doing but at times I have to fight my fatigue and fears.

Do you know what I mean? Do you have any suggestions? There are a lot of critics in this world that think I am crazy to do what I am doing and to encourage my daughter to do what she is doing but honestly we would have regrets if we were not doing this so we are being true to ourselves, I just wonder if the price for that is too high.

I don’t put up with regret, either. I can’t say that there aren’t times when this or that keeps me up at night, but on the whole, I’m pretty good at accepting what’s happened and managing failure. That’s an important part of the equation. If I sucked at it, I would be too distracted to focus on my goals.

-Linnea