So I have finally gotten back to the gym to swim again. I haven't been too great at exercising since Bobby was born, so I was a bit out of shape my first day back in the pool. Even though I felt floppy and uncoordinated (I imagine this is what it would look like if Olive Oyl tried to swim laps), it felt great to be back in the water.
When I went back for my second swim, I walked into the pool to see that it was filled with swim team kids practicing and their parents all around the pool watching. There are 8 lap lanes at the pool, 2 open for lap swimming, and 6 of them were filled with kids, 3 to a lane who were flying back and forth, showing off their butterfly stroke (well, maybe not showing off, but really, who can actually do the butterfly stroke? Its way too hard, so in my book, anyone who can even do half a lap of butterfly is showing off). Its pretty sad, but I was very intimidated by all these 10 year olds, who seemed to actually know the strokes and here's little old me, out of shape and with no formal swim training. I felt like all the kids, parents, and coaches would be watching me, shaking their heads in disgust at my poor form and lack of endurance. I could picture in my head the coaches pointing out my swimming to the students, as an example of what not to do. But I sucked it up and swam my laps anyway, this time slightly better than the first, but still pretty messy. (I am seriously considering searching youtube for videos about swim stroke technique...this either makes me brilliant for finding a way to learn to swim without paying for swim lessons, or super nerdy).
The really weird parts came after I finished swimming. First weird thing: I am showering off when I hear all the girls from the swim team come storming into the locker room. I get out of the shower with towels modestly wrapped around me and I see a locker room full of naked little girls. Yes, their moms were in there with them, but something just seemed wrong about this to me. I am not the kind of person who walks around a locker room totally naked and I get uncomfortable when other people do it. Usually, I have to endure sharing the locker room with old naked ladies (me being the only person under the age of 70), but now that I have to wait for Rob to get home to go swimming (I'm not quite ready to put Bobby in the child care yet), its a whole different pool crowd. For some reason, I feel more comfortable (not comfortable, but MORE comfortable) with the old naked ladies. I got out of that locker room as fast as I could.
Now for weird thing number 2: It was dark by the time I left the gym and as I was walking out, I saw a man about 20 feet in front of me who seemed to have just left the gym as well, but something seemed a little off. He was carrying a gym bag, but had lots of layers of clothes and a hooded sweatshirt and looked suspiciously homeless. I had parked in the back parking lot of the gym, so there weren't any other people around. I was cautious and slowed my pace to put some distance between me and Mr. Sketchy. When we got to the parking lot I was horrified to see that he went up to the car right next to mine and was looking in the windows. I was secretly hoping that he had misplaced his keys and was looking to see if he left them in the car. As he continued to look, I jumped in my car as quick as I could and immediately locked the doors behind me. I drove off quickly. I stopped at the other end of the parking lot to put my seatbelt on and turned to look back. He was still peeking the the windows and pulling at the door handles, which were locked. I'm fairly sure this was not his car, and I am just thankful he didn't choose my car as the one that he would pretend was his. Looking back on the situation, I wish I had called the gym to let them know there was a sketchy man in the parking lot, especially since a bunch of little kids were all about to exit the building. Hopefully my next trip to the pool won't be quite so eventful.
And speaking of homeless people, I just finished reading the book "The Glass Castle" and I loved it. It was super interesting and very well written. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good quick read.
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