Chapter Three: The Weights

They brought me back to the surface.

"Don't worry," Jim said. "We'll fix this."

And then they started putting weights around me.

I remember standing there on the surface, surrounded by a bunch of white guys, the only Black kid in the group, and feeling this heavy metal being strapped to my body. Every instinct in me screamed that this was wrong. They were weighing me down. They were making me heavier. They were pushing me deeper into something I was already terrified of.

But Jim looked at me with eyes that said, "I see you. I understand. Trust me."

He explained what I couldn't see for myself: I was too buoyant. My body naturally wanted to float, which was fine for swimming on the surface, but it was keeping me from the transformation that waited below. The weights weren't punishment. They were help.

"Listen," Jim said, his voice steady and reassuring. "As we go down deeper, you're going to grab the pipe. You're going to follow behind me. You're going to hold tight and pull yourself through until we get past the current that's pushing against us. The pipe will guide you. I will guide you. You just have to trust the process."