Day Fifty-Three

Very often, when I walk into the pool area, I am seemingly alone.  I like this.  The water stretching out before me looks calm and comforting.  The air is silent.  If I get cold enough before I get in, the water feels good right away.  If not, it feels good within a few minutes.  Often, as I walk, I soon discover that I am not actually alone--someone is in the Jacuzzi, or people start walking in and out of the sauna and steam room.  And this population just grows.  Several people seem to not really have a plan.  They are like Goldilocks, trying out everything, and nothing, it seems, is "just right."  These people baffle me.  I'll admit it.  Getting dressed in swimwear is no small feat.  I cannot imagine why anyone would do it who didn't have an actual plan of either getting in the pool for exercise or fun, soaking in the Jacuzzi, or at least being in the sauna or steam room long enough to do some good.  But they walk back and forth among all these options and loop through the locker rooms like toddlers at a new day care center. 

Meanwhile, I make my way back and forth in usually the first lane of the pool.  Forty laps, fifty laps, sixty laps--whatever I have time for.  One time, when other means of exercise were not yet available to me, I did one hundred twenty laps. 

This morning, I started out alone, but, very soon, the pool area was buzzing with people.  Swimmers or at least dinkers in every lane, people in the Jacuzzi and sauna and steam room.  It got noisy.  The Chinese woman came in a full half-hour early.  I remarked that she was early, and she said something I, unfortunately, could not understand.  She asked again if she could share my lane, and I again smiled and said, "Of course," and, "You don't need to ask.  We always share."  She remarked, "Long time," and I agreed.  We have had this mutual understanding for a long time.

By the end of the hour I had for walking, I was alone again.  I got out and wrung out my old swimsuit.  I hoped the new one I ordered would come today.  This is the second one I have completely worn out by wearing it to walk for hours in the pool.  Chlorine is not kind.  My black suits fade to navy, then mauve, then a sickly light pink, except for the top of the shoulder straps.  Then the seams start coming apart, or they get tears in them.  I repaired seams on my old suit numerous times before I gave up.  This one had a small tear in the skirt when I broke down and ordered a third. 

I dried off, put my workout top and long skirt back on over my naked body, and drove home to shower and dry off a third time with my fluffy towel that is so new that, despite having been washed once, doesn't absorb water but merely pushes it around on my skin. 

I am weighing in at the --2 now, which is better than the --6. 

My doctor appointment was uneventful.  She asked if I had, indeed, gotten married, and I confirmed I had.  She said she was glad that worked out for me, which was kind of her.  I told her I had saved my husband-friend's life, and she confirmed that when I gave her the details. When I told her I was doing one hundred days of no sugar, she asked how that felt to me.  How does it FEEL?  Images of the German chocolate cake flooded my vision and I didn't know what to say.  Is my energy elevated?  Not really.  I told her I am not losing as much weight as I had hoped, and she said that I should limit myself to 1200 calories a day AND go to the gym daily, if I expect to lose as much as a pound a week.  I nodded.  I'll chew on that.

What I didn't tell her, but I'll tell you, is that I noticed today, as I dressed in a cute little skirt that I could not wear a few weeks ago, that my stomach seems to have less of an overhang above the waist.  That is the kind of thing I am looking for.  Yes.

For dinner, I made a recipe from my childhood that I used to make for my older kids but completely forgot about in the two decades of not being allowed to cook.  Two of my children agreed it should definitely go on the rotation list.  Which is good, because I like it, and it is easy to make.  I know my gourmet-cook ex-husband would turn his nose up at it because it includes a can of soup, but he is now beyond my help. 

Between work and the doctor, I paid a visit to a former coworker who is now working in another building and is experiencing a recurrence of cancer.  I took her some leftover Spanish rice (another recipe from my childhood which my ex also turned his nose up at because REAL Spanish rice would never involve canned tomato juice), which she always exclaimed over when she had to smell me eating it at work.  I also slipped her a piece of the birthday cake.  She was delighted, and we talked a few minutes.  She handles her illness with more matter-of-factness and humor than I could ever imagine anyone doing, but the course of it seems more identical to that of my late sister than I would like to spend any time pondering.  I hope I get to see her again.

The German chocolate birthday cake, I am happy to report, is dwindling down to nothing.  My husband had had to work through the birthday party, and had his first and only piece of it this evening.  My children have been making short work of it, and I am not sad that I haven't had any--I'm glad to see it go.  If anything could undo me, it would be that.  My psychological fortress is strong, and I really have not put so much as a morsel of stuff with sugar in it into my mouth this whole time.  I want to keep it that way.  One bite, and the dam could break.  I know that.

The new swimsuit DID arrive today, and it looks cute and ample enough.  I did not try it on.  It's a large size, because I got impatient with the rows of bikinis and clicked on "plus size swimwear" to head right to the middle-age fortress models.  But, honestly, it is probably not too large.  I picked up my limp old suit off the drying rack to throw it away and noticed that it does have rips on the bodice as the fabric is pulling away from the side seams, exposing glimpses of the white bra thing underneath, and--horrors--a huge gaping hole in the skirt, exposing a fair amount of the panty beneath.  There was also a small square hole that looked like the one I had noticed before.  I don't know if it looked like this when I was in the pool this morning, or if the washing machine made it worse after my workout, but it is definitely time to throw it away.  Good timing, new swimsuit.