First off, I have become an absolute hermit and have spent waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time in my apartment in the last week, culminating in a near-break down on Saturday. On the plus side, I've spent a good amount of that time cooking really amazing food, like the adjacent salade niçoise with seared salmon. Possibly the most epicurean thing I've ever made. So cool.
Now onto heavier subject matter.
(from last Friday) When I was 9 and 10 I took the blue level in swimming five times. This was shortly after I had been diagnosed with a 46-letter neuromuscular condition, so times were slightly tense. I really do think that my parents could not have handled it any better (they really were amazing), but still, there were frustrations. Certainly one of mine was my inability to get a fucking blue badge (I did eventually, and actually went on to get my life guard qualification).
It was the last day of class, which means that no matter the outcome of pass or fail, we were allowed to go play on the diving boards. My father had actually borrowed a video camera for this occasion, my first jump off the three meter springboard. I remember years later watching the video as my little (ok, slightly doughy) 10-year old self climbed up to the top, my father zooming in as much as he could, but I was still only about an inch high on the screen. I remember the noises in the background of whistles and children shouting as on screen I shuffled around the edge of the board. Finally, after a couple of minutes, I descended back down the ladder. My Dad certainly isn't one of those fathers that considered this a personal failure and probably never really thought about it again.
A year or two later, I think grade 5, I was once again at the Pan Am pool, this time on a school trip and three friends, a couple girls and a boy, and I decided to try the diving boards. Naturally they all went off and when they reemerged at the top again, I was still standing there. Now these were really nice kids and they all tried to be encouraging and supportive but eventually it was all too much. All I could think of was my father and how I wished he was there and I started sobbing. The four of us walked down and went to fool around on the 1 m. boards and had a great time.
These anecdotes lead us to today's adventure. On Thursday, I did something that was challenging, personally. Sweating profusely, I bought a membership to the U of M gym. This was not a small amount of moisture but rather full-on flop sweat. I'm fairly certain that the blond too-short-to-be-an-Earl's girl at the front desk thought that I had been hitting the crack pipe with Whitney and Bobby. Even writing about it now, I'm getting dewy. But it needed to happen. Something needed to happen. This should be, as they say, my prime and I just really don't feel in it, not only aesthetically (cause God forbid this be purely about health) but more about every day activity. And holy fuck does it scare me, the notion of actually going through with this as a lifestyle. I have no clue why. I thought there was going to be a tie-in with the preceding childhood fuck-uperies, but now I can't really seem to marry the two other than I am still harbouring an ardent fear of not being able to jump off. Or something Sally Jesse stupid like that. Support will be needed. Oh yes. Friends, feel free to call me on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays to say, "Why isn't your soon-to-be-hot ass at the gym, beehatch! Love, Amy."
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