If I had an older brother, I doubt I would have ever joined a swim team. My father is very compitive and is a former jock himself. I think since I was the first born and he didn't have a son yet to live vicariously through, swimming seemed like a good sport to get your little girl into. It's not inheritently dangerous like some team sports out there, and I had a small natural talent for it.
So from the time I was about four or five years old up until middle school, I was on a swim team, both durring the winter and summer time. When I wasn't at practice, my dad would take me to the pool and pay me a quarter for every lap I'd swim. By the time middle school hit, I was sick of it. I still loved swiming, but I was tired of all the competing. I just didn't have that drive to win and I was burned out. I didn't go back to swimming competively until my second year at college.
When I was about 10 years old, I got a book on witch craft for christmas called, "The Encyclopeida of White Magic". I'd actually asked for a book on dark magic about medieval witches and the like, but I think my mom thought the one she'd picked out was a better alternative. Anyways, my friends and I used it to form our own little mini coven. It was very short lived, but for it's duration, I was the guardian of water (there was only four of us, so we thought it would be neat to have a guardian for each quarter of the circle, that way we each got to take part in casting the circle and we could all be the high priestess).
I also pocess some of the attributes associated with water, namely being a bit emotional. I'm quick to cry when I've been hurt emotionaly and I'm also the first to cry durring a sad movie. I make most of my decisons based on my feelings, wich is a very watery thing to do, in my opinion. I can have a bit of a temper, but I like to think of it as being more of a storm at sea rather than a firey aspect of myself. Fire ravages and destroys everything in its path, but after I'm done being angry, I don't have any carnage to deal with, just plain smooth water and a sunny sky.
I'm going to switch tracks now and tell you what I don't like about water. Fish. I hate swimming with fish, especially in cloudy water where I can't see them. Don't get me wrong, I love swimming holes and the ocean, and most other bodies of swimable natural water, but the first time I feel something brush against my skin, I'm out of there faster than you can blink. I don't know why I have this fear, and I know it's irrational, a little minow couldn't possibly hurt me, but the fear is there and I've never really gotten over it. Weird, right?
Well, because of this fear of fish touching me, I can't claim water as my sole predominant element, as much as I'd like to. It just wouldn't be being honest with myself. So the next element that I'm closest to after water would have to be air.
My teachers growing up have always said I was very creative, or that I was very dreamy with my head in the clouds (which that second one was almost never meant as a compliment). I've always been a fan of fantasy and science fiction, escapist type books, also very air like. I also thought I was going to turn out to be a pilot in one of the military branches through most of highschool. It wasn't until senior year that I found out that the only branch that would take me would be the army as a helocopter pilot since I didn't have 20 20 vision. I like roller coasters and ski lifts (and sking too), but there are some things I don't like so much about air as well.
In ROTC in college, they would try and force me to do the repelle tower and rock climbing. I'm sorry, but that little tiny wire could not possibly hold me up, I just couldn't believe it. I was always terrified that the darn thing would snap on me. The zip wire was the worse of the lot. I definately don't like free fall with out some very solid structure around me (like the metal car in a roller coaster).
So I have a little bit of a fear of hights, so air is kind of out for me as well.
The last two elements are fire and earth, the two most unlike my personality. I don't really have a firey temper for the most part (it usually takes quite alot for me to get mad) and I don't have much in the way of will power. I'm also not very practical, stuborn or organized which are the main earth qualities. I like plants well enough, but I always end up killing them when I get them as presents or get an urge to buy one. I like candals and firey things (I particuarly have a fondness for dragons), but personality wise, neither fire nor earth are me (which is kind of funny since I was born on the Cusp between Leo and Virgo, a fire and an earth sign. I was only a Vigo by a couple of hours, but I'll talk about all of that in some future entry).
So what element am I then? Well, I beleive that I lay some where between sea and sky, a rider of the wind who flies across water, a mixed beeing. The surface of the ocean. Some day (hopefully soon) I'm planning to get a house boat and live out on the water, to know my element at it's most intense state.
So how might this relate to you, you ask me? My long article on my analysis of what my element is, is really just for me. This whole website is kind of a personal thing that I can access anywhere that I have web access. So I'm not really writting so much for you as I am for me... But if you'd like to take somthing from this, I highly recomend writting something similar about yourself. Analyze all the elements in relation to YOU and see where you fall. There are no wrong answers since you are the ultimate authority on you, as long as you are honest with yourself.
