I Love the Smell of Chlorine in the Morning

I wish I could say this is me...but it's not.

I have a thing about chlorine. It makes my heart beat a little faster when I catch a whiff of it. I'm not sure why, but I have a kind of love affair with pools. So when I found myself on my own schedule after quitting my day job to build another business, I made a vow to work out every day for 90 minutes... and with a pool just minutes away, of course I picked water! And chlorine!

I'm an early riser, and if I leave my house at 5:50 a.m., I can be sitting poolside by 5:55 with my feet dangling in the water, waiting for the lifeguard (who cannot be more than 14 years old) to mount his chair... and that's my cue. My morning is part swimming, part "water-leaping," a technique that I've developed where I leap forward on my toes as fast as I can and push hard against the water with my arms. The swimming part is a little choppy (I'm going to get help for that soon - I have lined up a swimming "consultant" to bark commands at me, come mid-May). But the water-leaping part makes me friends! I have met some great pool peeps. And, of course, they have met me, so I'm sure I have been referred to as the crazy water-leaper in their conversations. (Don't laugh - on Sunday, two women asked me to show them what I was doing, and they followed me. Of course, I was the most graceful of the three of us. Which isn't saying a whole lot).

But I digress... so back to my water pals: there's Mary, who hates coming to the pool but does it so her back won't hurt for the rest of the day; and Kim, who worked for a Korean bakery for ages and has been a pool member for 20 years; and Tom, who doesn't say much but smiles at me a lot; and Marie, who says the rosary on her fingers while she's exercising and reminds me about all of the traditional Italian customs I had long forgotten. Marie is my favorite today because she said, "So, how old are you? You're not 50 yet, right?" I wanted to say, "Right!," but I didn't. I fessed up that I will be 57 in a few weeks. (May 30, to be exact, in case you want to send me something. Let me know if you need my address.)

I'm proud of myself for not yet missing a day - it's been over three weeks since I started, and now I'm hooked. My arms are so much stronger, my stomach's getting flatter, my face is rosier and more defined, and my clothes are looser - those all amount to a good outcome. But the thing I love best is that I get to breathe in as much chlorine as I want. Ahhhhhh. It's the little things that make me happy.


© 2013 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie