part 2 of my swimming story.
for ten years you do not own a bathing suit.
then last year old navy has a sale and on impulse, you buy a bikini. a green flowery bikini. you've never bought a bikini before, and it is weird having your tummy stick out. but whatever, it'll probably never be used.
at a certain point though, after seeing college kids doing laps through the pool window in the montpetit building corridors, you start wishing you could swim again. you're not ten years old anymore, you're not completely self-conscious about how much your body sucks. swimming would definitely get you into shape, it would even help you tone your body and build some muscle. and the chlorine could clear up your acne. it's also free.
so you go. one night after policy studies class, you borrow a lock from the snotty sports reception desk chick and stash your shit away in a locker. equally snotty athletic girls walk by you with an air of importance and impatience, expertly unlocking their locks within a matter of seconds and changing into their swimgear just as quickly. you struggle with your locker door and clumsily tye on your green bathing suit. you wish you'd brought sandals because the floor is disgusting.
after taking out your contacts and stepping into the pool room, you realize you can't see anything, and don't even know which lane you should be in - or if it even matters. so you ask the closest girl, explaining this is your first time swimming in 10 years and that you are almost legally blind. "omg! wow that's so cute!" is the patronizing reply. you do this a few times and the response is always the same. so you stop asking unless absolutely necessary. you almost trip over yourself about a thousand times.
you slip into the water and it feels great. you start splashing around. it is at this point when you realize that you have no idea how to swim. so you grab a flipboard and start kicking. you figure you must look like a retard, but since you're unable to see anybody's facial expression, why should you care? someone - presumably the lifeguard you just spoke to - comes over and tells you the lazy lane is actually a circle around the entire pool, so you have to go in one direction. oh sure, no problem you say. it is only when you get to the lane separators when you realize this is much more challenging than you imagined. and every time you come up from under the water, you feel like you're five years old again.. out of breath, eyes tightly shut, hair in face. why are you so averse to going under water?
you only last 15 minutes.
the chlorine dries out your hair, you have a headache for three days, you are exhausted. from a mere 15 minutes. but you say fuck that, and the next week you go again. a snotty male lifeguard on the one side tries to explain to you where the casual lane is today (it's not a circle like last time), pointing this way and that, and you get confused since you can't see anything he's pointing at. at a certain point you give up and go to the shallow side, where there's another lifeguard who is much more friendly (and chubby). he successfully explains it to you, and so you jump in, once again utilizing a flipboard - pink this time - and try to swim on your back. when you were young, the back crawl was the only thing you were remotely good at. no underwater crap, no having to raise your mouth to breathe crap. it's essentially power-floating. but at this point you don't remember how to coordinate your arms and every time you try you immediately start sinking. but the flipboard barely helps. then the friendly lifeguard comes over to you and tells you to put the flipboard on your chest and loosely hold it with your arms crossed. don't hold on too firmly, he advises. just float. so you try it and after keep repeating the word float float float in your head, it works. you practise a few times, making the rounds. this isn't challenging anymore. so you throw aside the flipboard, push your legs from the wall and use your arms ... and for the first time in ten years, you swim! you're not drowning anymore! well for the first ten seconds anyway. but who cares, YOU SWAM! ALL BY YOURSELF!
after five minutes you decide you've had enough. you grab your towel and blindly ask someone where the sauna is - she points you towards the locker room. when opening the door to the sauna room, you see 2 girls talking to each other. it's tiny and cramped. "well i guess we can make room" one girl reluctantly says. even though you can barely see, you can tell from their nonverbal behaviour they don't want you in there. "no worries", you say, "there's another one right?" and shut the door. why are athletic girls so snobby? you think to yourself. you use the empty one to stretch, burning your nose from deep breathes. this time you are much more diligent in the locker room, and it doesn't take you as long to get your shit together. this could be because you were smart and put in your contacts before doing anything else.
you're coming the next week, and the week after that, and the week after that. this time you won't give up. this time you won't let anyone get to you, especially yourself. if all you can do is the backcrawl, then so be it. this is fun, and unlike the humourless social outcast ten year old version of yourself, today you know how to laugh at snotty uptight bitches.
this time around, you can do it.
* stupidest title ever, which is why i'm using it. i'm post-ironic, see.
