Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Swimmers

I meant to blog this last Friday but .... well .... It's here now.

On Friday mornings I do aqua aerobics. I apologise for those of you who have met me and now have a mental image. For those of you to whom I am a cyber friend, use that, and imagine a size 8 supermodel effortlessly gliding through the water.

Last Friday I turned up to my class to find that the local high school had descended on the pool, and were sitting right next to the place we do aqua aerobics. Now for those of you who don't know much about aqua aerobics, it is the exercise of choice for those who are old, fat or maimed. To quote one of the women, "I'm going down the deep end, so the kids don't have to watch my flobberly bits."

Anyway once the class finally, got started we all got involved kicking, swimming, exercising, subjecting ourselves to all kinds of water torcher. We ultimately didn't mind that we were being watched by a group of teenagers.

Afterwards as we got of the pool, still old, fat or maimed, but now also, hot, sweaty, red and sopping wet. We were reflecting that we were not self conscious about our bodies, especially when compared to our own high school pool excursion experiences (and many of these girls and boys immediate experience). These days many of us would pay good money, and would have to pay lots of it, to look even half as svelte as we did when we were teenagers, but are so much more confident about who we are and our bodies that we don't need to.

If given the option of the self confidence and body I have now, or the body I had a fourteen and all the self image issues that go along with being a teenager. I will pick now every time.

Blessings

Emma

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am so glad I am not a teenager and I have earned every wrinkle, gray hair and sag that I have. :)

Unknown said...

What a good feeling!

Anonymous said...

Amen, amen! What a great feeling to start being comfortable in the body.

Have you read Anne Lamott? she has some wonderful and hilarious descriptions of becoming comfortable with her body.