WORRIES

I had a few worries when I came upon the idea of getting up early to do pool exercises before going to work.
I worried that it would be difficult to get up an hour earlier. I needn’t have worried. It’s not hard at all. I worried that the bus service at that hour would be unreliable. But the bus has been on time every single day. I worried that the water would be cold. I needn’t have worried. The water feels warm, not a shiver in it. Without my white cane to warn them off, I worried about bumping into fellow aqua-joggers. What can I say about that? Hardly anybody aqua-jogs at that hour! I worried that I wouldn’t keep going to the pool after it snowed. No worries there. It snowed last week just to test me, and I went anyway. I worried about crossing the streets that have no audible traffic signals at a time when there are few people to help, and not enough cars to let you know whether the light is red or green. I still worry about this, but not enough to make staying home an option.
There were a whole bunch of worries I didn’t have, though I can’t say for sure why I didn’t have them, given that my mind isn’t always as sharp as I’d like it to be around 6:00 AM. Be proactive was my motto, so I did try to ward off potential problems. I knew the little touches would make all the difference, like putting on my bathing suit under my clothes every morning, just to save time at the pool. If any problems came up, I felt sure they wouldn’t matter.
I was right too. After all, it didn’t really matter that I accidentally wore my pink sweater into the swimming pool one morning instead of taking it off when I undressed. I was able to button up the pink over-sweater so high that nobody at the office even guessed that the smart little matching sweater which should have been showing itself at the front was secretly drying in my coat closet.
And it didn’t really matter that my towel decided to stay home one day. It didn’t matter because Rhonda, my favourite lifeguard, rose eloquently to the occasion the moment she saw me slinking out onto the pool deck with the despairing face of one who is calculating the amount of time that will be needed to dry an entire body under the change-room hand dryer. Boldly rejecting my offer of cash, she vehemently presented my case to the guy in charge of the towels. I heard her say, ”That lady comes really often and she always brings her own towel.”.
And it didn’t really matter about the other thing—the unmentionable thing either, because when all is said and done, I don’t think anybody ought to go through an entire career without ever experiencing the heightened adventure of spending a full day in the role of professional woman freed from the tyranny of underwear.
Indeed, given the evidence presented so far, it does seem that in the matter of going for a morning dip on the way to work there is nothing to worry about at all.