SCUBA: extreme sports wanna-be addict having mid-life crisis

Each time I pass Red River Scuba on Shed Road in Bossier City, I want to go in and relive my glory days as a failed scuba diver in West Palm Beach, Fla. I really want to - but I always drive right on by with a long glance from my peripheral viewpoint.

“Why don’t I throw caution to the wind and just sign up?” I ask myself.

Probably the same reason I don’t take Tango lessons or wear bikinis. I’m afraid and I also don’t want to gross anyone out.

Gross outs aside, I just might force myself to sign up for a Red River Scuba dive class. I need to finish the last scuba test I am required to take before licensing as a true certified Scuba Diver. Call it a mid-life crisis of unfinished business. I didn’t take the written test on my Florida dive trips 20 years ago, because I had math anxiety (too much calculating dive and oxygen times) and I threw up on my first open water dive when I was pushed backward off a large boat into the churning, dark waters of West Palm Beach.

“Keep going,” my dive instructor assured me. “You can throw up in your BC pack (basically oxygen tank).”

“No frigging way,” I thought as I threw up into my BC pack.

After much regurgitating and trying to see colorful fish in really dark waters, I forced the dive boat to take me back and waited for the rest of the class to come back as well. Everyone came back with super fun stories about tropical fish - even the 10-year-old who was in my dive group.

The memories. Maybe I don’t go back because I have Post Traumatic Scuba Disorder. But time is not on my side. I’m goin’ back and trying it again. Join me? Red River Scuba is at 4825 Shed Road. For more information access www.redriverscuba.com or call 318-629-3483.