Learning to swim at nineteen with little kids in the next lane is braver than half the stunts people post.

Beginning late means learning in public alongside people who make the contrast obvious. That is uncomfortable, and it is also just the arithmetic of having started at a different time. The skill you gain is identical to theirs, and you had to want it more to be there at all.

Book the lesson and go on the quiet days if that makes the first weeks easier. Keep your attention inside your own lane. Measure against where you were last week, and let the presence of faster learners be information rather than commentary.