aqua chicken | My Awesome Olive Shoots

I feel like I’m never going to be able to do it. Today was the most discouraging swimming lesson thus far. My spirit, my body, my hopes sunk. I feel like an aqua failure. Maybe I’m always going to be the girl out of water, the mom who can’t swim. If you know how to swim, celebrate this gift, oh how I envy you.

While at my swimming lesson tonight, I got a nasty flashback to high school math class. I remember understanding math and being so excited because it all made sense. For a few classes it was like it all seemed to come together and I was optimistic. But then things started to get more complicated and I had trouble keeping up. Little by little I got more and more behind. I didn’t flunk the class but never went very far in that subject. Now three decades later, here I was, in the swimming pool at my gym having those same hopeless feelings. Only this time I’m a middle-aged wife and mama in a bathing suit.

I was trying and trying but just didn’t seem to be getting it. My arm was in the wrong place. My ears came out of the water. I kicked too hard. I kicked too softly. I breathed in water and felt a wave of despair waft over me. After repeatedly trying and failing quite terribly, it was my turn again. Coach Doug gave me the go-ahead and basically I froze. I just couldn’t do it. And before I could stop myself, I felt tears filling my swimming goggles. Coach Doug must have known something was wrong and he came over and gave me a hug.

Apparently I am a nervous swimmer. It seems implausible for me to slow down my strokes and I’m not going to give up but boy, do I feel like this is never going to work out. One moment I could envision myself this summer in the water, splashing and playing just like all the other people out there. Tonight I feel like I’m doomed to failure.

As far as I’m concerned, (and I know some of you will disagree with me) well, quite frankly, I think swimming is more difficult than childbirth. I’ve grunted three children out of my body and although I didn’t find the experiences especially enjoyable at the time, somehow I was good and proficient at it. This swimming stuff is proving a great challenge.

Ask any woman who isn’t a runway model and she’ll tell you, bathing suit shopping isn’t for the faint of heart. I am in the best shape I’ve been in about eight years and out of necessity, I had to get a new suit. Despite losing over 5.25 inches off my body in the last 10 weeks, it took three days, ten stores and extraordinary spiritual fortitude to find one that wouldn’t scar my kids or shame my husband for life! It was nearly an impossible task. Have you seen the swimwear options out there? They need to have gi–normous boxes of Kleenex in the dressing room or have a licensed therapist on the premises. Wow!

The reason I put myself through such trauma is because, somehow, (I have no idea how), I lost my bathing suit. I wore it to the gym last Saturday and haven’t seen it since. The cause for my urgent need for a bathing suit is that I am now taking swim lessons. For over four decades I’ve been an aqua chicken but now I’m taking the plunge, so to speak.

My lesson started in a matter of hours. My mom was visiting and so we dashed over to the shopping center but couldn’t find one bathing suit even mildly flattering or comfortable. Each store we entered my delusional yet loving mom would hopefully announce, “I just know we’re going to find a suit for you. I just feel it.” Puh-lease! It took only seconds in Old Navy, Kohls, Dicks Sporting Goods, and Target to realize that wasn’t going to happen. Reluctantly I wore an old bathing suit to the lesson.

However, yesterday, out of shear necessity, I took my middle OS bathing suit shopping with me. The first store we went to was Everything But Water at the mall. Aaron

recalls it as “the most awkward experience in his entire life.” I told him it was Husband Training. We walked into the store and this was the first suit which greeted us. Can you believe it???

My guys don’t like it when their mom wears a suit with a scooped out navel. We left dejected.

But today, rejoice friends, I found two suits at Dillards. Beulah, my saleslady was my swimwear angel. She was encouraging and positive, I felt like I could trust her. I gave her a big hug right after handing her my credit card. This is a picture of one of the suits I bought. As many of you know, this is NOT me in the photo.

Then I came home, ripped off that sani-strip (ew!) and went to the pool and practiced the dead man float and putting my chin in the water. I showed Aaron and Isaac how I could put my head under water and they were mes-mo-rized, (HA!)

I’m keeping my eyes on my bathing suits in the future. I hope I don’t have to go looking again for a really long time.

Oh, one more thing, Miracle Suits are miserable! Don’t torture yourself!

See you at the pool. Look for the hot mama in a sassy suit with the kickboard. It’s me.