I took swimming classes at my local YMCA after I was able to afford a membership as a young working adult. I was 25 at the time and in my swimming class, I was taught by someone that was much younger than I was and received very odd looks from either the young kids or the elderly folks at the swimming pool learning how to swim.

Despite the odd looks, I kept at it and finally learned how to swim!! I used to be deathly afraid of the water and never went in the deep end as I never knew how to stay afloat.

One thing that was the most difficult to unlearn as an adult was keeping myself perpendicular to the pool as I always relied on being able to stand on the floor pool to keep myself from sinking.

I also realized that chlorine destroys your ability to see the next day after being in the pool. My vision stayed blurry for days and not even my glasses were able to fix it. So if anyone reading wants to learn how to swim at a later age, definitely invest in swimming goggles.

I didn’t have swimming lessons in school until I was 15 or so, but then everyone except one of my classmates already could swim.

And I was seriously confused because not knowing how to swim was on the same level as not knowing how to ride a bike or use a fork.

As a small child in Oregon, US, there was no swimming program at my (private) school, but my parents made sure that I learned to swim in the municipal pool. I remember the scorecard for early lessons — paddling was much easier than some of the other required skills, like "opening your eyes underwater", ouch!