Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming

I've been swimming since I can remember. In fact, I can remember my first bathing suit. It was a two-piece blue and green plaid with ruffles around the top and the waist. It was freaking adorable. And the only bikini I've ever worn. I could get away with it when I was two and cute.

I took swimming lessons every summer, usually with my best friend Katie and her brother Justin. After a while Katie and Justin joined the summer swim club, which met for practice at 6:00am. Even at 10, I valued my sleep and was like, "No freaking way!" My mom still made me take lessons, though, on the basis that it was good exercise. In high school, I was on the swim team for two years, and I worked as a lifeguard.

I've always loved swimming. I think part of it has to do with how graceful I feel in the water. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I'm decidedly ungraceful on land. Seriously. Anybody. But in the water I'm smooth and light. I also like the feeling of being all alone. When I swim, it's just me and the water. I don't worry about anyone else. In fact, I don't even think about anyone else. Usually.

Even though I was always chubby growing up, I never let that keep me from swimming. I loved it too much to let the opinions of a bunch of stupid people keep me from doing it. In the last 50 pound or so, though, I started to let it get to me. I never swam anymore. For a long time, I didn't even own a bathing suit.

When I decided to get serious about losing weight, I decided I would start swimming again. I'll admit that it was hard at first, and not just because of the suit. Swimming is hard, I tell you! I thought I was going to die there for a minute. But it got easier, and it became more fun. It's still hard, but it's relaxing too.

So I've been swimming twice a week for a while now. I always go after work, and the pool used to be dead at that time. I've even been the only one in there before. Now, though, there's always a bunch of people. I'm thinking maybe the people who exercised outdoors when it was warmer switched to swimming for the winter? I'm not sure, but I always seem to have to share a lane now.

That brings me to my kind deed for the day : I offered to share my lane with another swimmer, even though I hate sharing a lane and she was all geared up and I knew she would leave me in her bubbles. Luckily, she was nice enough not to lap me too many times.

That's not really my point, though. My point is that today (and Tuesday) the pool was FA-REEZ-ING! Sure, pools are always a little chilly when you first get it, but you warm up once you start moving, right? Not here. I swam half a mile, and at the end, I was still cold. It was like swimming in tap water! Brrrr.

The really annoying part about it was that I called before I went to make sure the problem was fixed! The girl on the other end told me the problem had been resolved, and yet, I had to thaw out in the sauna afterwards (and this dorky teenage boy came in when I was in there - awkward!). I stopped at the front desk on my way out to talk to someone about it, and the girl was a complete brat. I said that I had called, and the girl said, "Yeah, we got the parts in today and it was fixed today, but it takes a day or so for it to get back up to temperature." I said, "Well, you shouldn't tell people it's fixed if it's not." And she said, "Um, it is fixed." All snotty-like. So I said, "But it's still freezing, so it's really not." Get this. She rolled her eyes at me and said, "Fine, it's not."

That brings me to my second kind deed for the day. I barely refrained from leaping across that counter and slapping Miss Prissy McSnotty-pants silly. It was an exceptionally charitable act, if you ask me.

Man, nothing makes me madder than lousy customer service.

One benefit of all this swimming I'm doing is that my suit seems to fit a lot better. The girls aren't spilling out anymore. In fact, the girls don't spill out of anything anymore, hallelujah. And my clothes are all getting too big. I keep stepping on the hems of my pants because they're too long now that they waistband sits on my hips. I keep pulling them up, and it makes me feel like a gomer. Hard to complain about that, though!

So, even as I drug myself shivering through the frigid waters (okay, that's a slight exageration), I was still pretty proud. I even finished off with my handstand. I always do a handstand at the end of my workout. It reminds me to have balance in my life. Plus, it's the only playing I get to do. And it makes me feel graceful.

Then I went in the sauna until my teeth stopped chattering.