Part of the rehabilitation for my back surgery is aquafit. I’ve been going to physio and religiously doing my exercises for it, but I just could not bring myself to go to the pool. Excuses aplenty… it’s funny how much cleaning and random organization I’ve been putting off that magically gets placed at the top of my “to do” list when I’m staring the necessity of wearing a bathing suit in public in the eye. Clean the grout under the tub with a toothbrush? Yes. Re-pot every plant in my apartment? Uh huh. Alphabetize and colorcode every CD, DVD, book and bill in my house? Check!
This morning I had no more excuses. And the strangest part about it is – I love swimming. I LOVE IT. But I just feel really self conscious about being in public in a swimsuit. This is the curse of being a girl. And perhaps the fact that I lived near Kits Beach for 2 years. Where every person looks like they just stepped out of Fit Magazine. No pasty-ness. No jiggly bits. But I ended up going to the Percy Norman pool at Main & 30th. On a Tuesday morning. And it was FULL of seniors. I had absolutely nothing to fear, so with more confidence I slid into the pool in preparation for the class to begin. I thought it would be easy… the median age of everyone in the water was likely 60, after all.
And it slayed me. I totally could not keep up with the flailing arms and hippity hopping, and hand-eye coordinating happening. It made me laugh, and damn thankful that 3/4 of my body was hidden underneth the water so the embarrassing lack of coordination wasn’t totally apparent to everyone around me. Except when they started “running” forward… and I was trying to go to the side. Then I go forward and everyone else is flipping their arms up and down and spinning around. Sweet Jesus. I’ll get it eventually (I hope) . And I absolutely *loved* being in the water. I should maybe just start swimming laps instead of the aquafit (although I can see how one would build some pretty decent pipes at that class). But a word of warning to any thugs that may be lurking in the bushes waiting to prey on poor, frail old people – those people could probably bench press 200 lbs (with one hand). And here I am having serious doubts that I will be able to lift my arms tomorrow. Grandmas and Grandpas, I love you – and you inspire the hell out of this girl 