For as long as I can remember I’ve had a love of two things- water and writing. It is to both of these that I owe my very existence. My father, many years before I was born, defected from Russia. He was a sailor in the Russian military. He had kept a journal of his thoughts and experiences while traveling the world that had opposed communist policy. In those times, that was considered a most dire criminal offense. In order to escape being charged and imprisoned, he literally jumped ship into the Strait of Dardanelles, evading his would-be captors and tiding into an entire new life.
As for me, water has never been just 2/3 of the earth’s surface. I used to spend countless hours in the bath, the pool, and in the ocean on the rare occurrences in which I had the opportunity. I used to swim to the bottom of the pool and look up towards the sun and imagine what it would be like to live underwater, and this purity of peace would consume me. When asked if I could have any superpower I wanted my response was immediate- to breathe under water. “What animal would you be if you had your choice of any?” Dolphin. I’d want to be a dolphin.
I’m 28 years old and I’ve never had the opportunity to go diving. Honestly, it would be my own personal taste of heaven. I never feel quite as content, or better yet, as serene, as I do when I take to the water. I even have water splashes tattooed on both of my ankles. And now, I’ve passed this down to my own daughter. She’s two and already, I must oblige the countless amount of time that she herself wants to spend in the water.
So when you ask why I want to change my life and become a PADI instructor, my first inclination is to answer that no single other human being walking this earth would appreciate it more, be as grateful, dedicated or nurture the opportunity quite like I would. Then I think… “For her”. You wouldn’t just be granting an internship, you would be gifting me and my daughter, our own personal new world.
I am a person that was born into the wrong body. This body has lungs instead of gills. Luckily the trade is that these hands can hold a pen. I write every day of my life. I’d send you 500 pages of why I desire this above all instead of 500 words but alas, I’d be putting the other contestants at a disadvantage. –Wink- Please let me be the person to write every day and tell the world about the lives you’ve changed with this opportunity. For giving me the gills I was not born with. For giving someone the life they’ve always wanted, but could not attain for themselves.
Thank you,
Larissa Stone
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