When I was very small, I used to love to watch people in the swimming pool. Swimming seemed to be a lot of fun. Everybody seemed to be having a wonderful time playing in water. I wanted to learn to swim. Unfortunately, there was no large body of water, natural nor man made, within 10 mile radius from my home.
But swimming pools had always been a great interest for me. I kept finding myself looking longingly at them almost wherever I could find them. And I had always been envious at people who could afford to have a pool in their homes.
Later, I moved to a more urbanized part of the city. There were swimming pools. I heard my friends talked about swimming in them. But still I didn’t learn to swim. I can’t remember why.
It was a stroke of luck that one day, my high school buddy asked if I wanted to take swimming lessons with him in the public swimming pool not far from our homes. He could swim, but he wanted to improve on his skills.
There I was, already in my teens, taking swimming lessons with kids half my age. It wasn’t so bad when I was in the water, because then it was just me, my buddy and our swimming coach.
And finally, after years of waiting, I was able to swim. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was enough to get me moving in the water.
Afterwards, I looked for opportunities to swim. Until one day, I stopped.
I often feel like kicking myself if I remember all the excuses I came up with for not going swimming. Here are some of them:
- - I don’t like swimming without friends
- - The pool is too crowded
- - My swim shorts don’t fit
- - I’m embarrassed with my body
- - I forgot to bring my swim shorts
- - It’s too cold to swim
It came to pass that I fed myself too liberally that I got to the point where I became mildly obese. I knew then I had to feed myself less, and to move my body more. I bought a treadmill to ensure that I would exercise everyday.
It didn’t help.
One day, my wife and I went to a sport shop and bought a pair of swimming shorts. It was again a stroke of luck that they have my size, when many times before the shops never had ones so large.
The next Saturday, we went swimming in the same pool where I had my swimming lessons, almost 20 years ago. And on that day:
- - I was not alone, my wife was with me.
- - The pool was not so crowded yet.
- - I wore a brand new pair of swim shorts that fit me perfectly.
- - I was overweight, but I decided not to give a dime’s worth of what people would think when they saw my bulging body.
- - The water was cold, but it was not bad.
There was no more excuses but to go ahead and swim.
And I swam.
I did about ten laps across the width of the pool before it got much to crowded to swim without running into another swimmer.
Next weekend, I swam in the pool of the hotel where we stayed.
Today, I swam again in another hotel pool.
I just want to keep swimming!
Next weekend will be a date between me and the good old swimming pool.
