I was about 14 years old on that hot and humid summer afternoon in Connecticut. Several of my friends and I were planning on going to a local lake to spend the afternoon swimming and basking in the sun. My friend’s parents dropped us off, then left us to enjoy the day together.

We positioned our beach towels on the shore, then my friends all ran excitedly into the lake and swam out to a platform that was floating in the water. Don’t ask me how far the platform was from the shore; I have no idea.

Now I’m not the greatest swimmer, but I’d had a few lessons, so I was a bit unsure that day, of whether I should try to swim to the floating platform, but, as teenagers tend to do, it was important that I follow the crowd, be part of the cool people, so I pushed my apprehension aside and proceeded to swim toward the platform.

Well, I got halfway there and suddenly my body just sort of gave up and since I had stopped moving, I sank beneath the surface of the water.

I managed to kick my legs and get my head above water, but I quickly sank a second time, and this time, I started to swallow lake water. Again, I somehow managed to get myself to the surface, but then I sank a third time.

Everything in my field of vision was green because the lake water was green with little bits of debris drifting past. I could see the surface about five feet above me. I couldn’t see the bottom.

As I sank, the surface of the water was rapidly growing higher and higher above me. I was exhausted and inhaled even more lake water.

Something inside of me said, “If you panic now, you’re going to drown.”

I began to move my feet and arms to propel myself to the surface. It took every bit of strength I had, but I did it.

When I got to the surface, I turned myself over onto my back and floated. Gasping. Heart pounding.

Then I thought, “Should I swim out to where everyone else is on that floating platform or should I go back to shore?” I was almost exactly halfway between them. Then I realized that if I were to get to the floating platform, sooner or later I’d have to swim back to shore, and the next time, I just might not make it, so I decided to move toward the shore instead.

Good thinking. Slowly swishing my hands and arms and feet, I kept moving toward the shore, floating on my back, until I could feel the bottom of the lake beneath my very tip-toes at last. It seemed like it took me a very long time to get to where I was. I was still pretty far from the shore, but now that  I could barely touch the bottom, I stopped there and rested, throwing my head back and gasping and gasping and gasping for air. And spitting out that gross water. Safe at last.

After several minutes, I was finally strong enough to propel myself back to the shore. I didn’t go back into the water that day.

You know what the amazing thing was? No one noticed that I was in trouble. My friends were too busy playing in the water, diving off the platform, laughing and having a good time to notice that I was struggling.

The other amazing thing was that I learned a valuable life-lesson that day: that if I had panicked, I would certainly have drowned.

This applies to our present-day situation as well, with this coronavirus pandemic sweeping across our world.

I went to Walmart a few weeks ago. A woman in the checkout lane ahead of me had a whole cart full of toilet paper. I said, “I’m not buying into that bullshit,” and she replied, “Oh, me neither; I was just out of toilet paper.” I thought, “Uh huh. When I’m out of toilet paper, I buy a whole cartload of it too…”

One week ago, I was in the grocery store and the shelves were picked bare of toilet paper, paper towels, tissue, hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, soap, dry rice and beans, and canned vegetables; and the frozen food bins were completely void of chicken! It freaking looked like a zombie-apocalypse. I have never experienced anything like this in my whole life.

Like my near-drowning experience, I see here again, that panic can lead to even worse things.

I’ve heard horror stories from all over the United States, where physical fights are breaking out between grocery-store patrons over freaking toilet paper! Come on, people! How about we consider the thought that we are all in this together? Yes, people are going to die, but people die from the flu and other things every single day. A few years ago, we had the SARS virus scare and the swine flu and the bird flu and the ebola scare and people didn’t panic like this! Maybe those diseases weren’t as contagious; I don’t know. All I know is that trampling one another like stampeding cattle causes more people to get hurt than if we were to simply slow down and think about what it is we truly need (without hoarding) and what we can do to help others. Everyone matters—from the elderly person in a nursing home to the homeless person on the street, to the pregnant woman or the families with and without children or those who are single or incarcerated, to the privileged to the underprivileged and everyone in between.

Amid all the doom and gloom, several of my neighbors have posted online that they are available to help anyone who might need food or medical supplies or that they are willing and able to help in any way possible. That’s how it should be.

I do not claim to know any of the true statistics or facts about this virus—anyway, “the facts” change daily and depending on to whom you listen. All I’m saying is that mass hysteria doesn’t help matters; it only makes things worse. Let us think clearly here. If I hadn’t done that that day, I would have certainly drowned. Let us help one another to keep our heads above water so that we don’t drown in this mass hysteria.

We will get through this TOGETHER!

*All photos courtesy of Pixabay