ARE YOU AWESOME?

*It should be noted that these images are from a trip to A-Town a few weeks ago and have NOTHING to do with my awesomeness today. But how much do you love the one of Midge and Mags? Adorbs!

I keep telling myself if I could just slow my thinking down, take a moment and record some words to go with the images of our life these days, I won’t regret it. Sometimes writing feels like working out. It is the best and worst part of my day. Sometimes I don’t want to do it, but when I do get around to doing it, I always, always feel better. Sometimes I have a really good workout/purging of words and other times it is just  boringly ho–hum.

This morning I found myself at the pool strapping on my lap suit, goggles and cap and I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d been at the pool to actually get some exercise. (Side note: Barry and I took Maggie on her birthday and we got to frolic around the splash park section together as a family. Two things about this: 1. Maggie loves the water and I can’t help but feel a bit proud about this, but the girl was jumpin and a jivin’ in the water. 2. We’re the family that totally matched. Barry and Maggie packed the swim bag and failed to mention that Maggie and would be sporting our pink polka dot suits together. If that wasn’t bad enough, Barry and Maggie both wore goggles perched on top of their heads the whole time, at Maggie’s insistence, of course.)

So I found myself at the pool this morning by myself and I was delighted to see that there was an open lane and only two other people swimming laps, along with the water aerobics class full of short-haired ladies. I shimmied into the open lane (which happened to be the Fast Lane, which = scary lane usually) and immediately started doing my lap swimming thing. My lap swimming thing looks like this: crawl stroke, back stroke, kick board, kick board above the head,  breast stroke, some more crawl stroke, just arms and repeat until I find myself wanting to do hand stands while I catch my breath. At that point I usually get out – after doing a hand stand or two.

I happened to be in the middle of my kick board/ kick board above head routine when an older gentleman got in the lane next to me. I had noticed him wading in the shallow pool with his water noodle earlier. We made eye contact and I gave him a smile, hoping that my slowness in the fast lane wasn’t bothering him. Turns out it wasn’t because he gave me a huge smile and said:

“I think you’re awesome. “

I couldn’t have heard him correctly because older gentlemen don’t usually use the word awesome and my ears sometimes play tricks on me. Plus, I was about to put the kick board above my head and kick my way down the lane until I hit the wall on the other side and by my standards of awesomeness, which I think are fairly high, ramming a kick board into the pool wall did not define awesome.

So I smiled at him and said,

“Excuse me?”

He smiled back and at me, and by this time he’d affixed his ginormous goggles on top of his wrinkled forehead, and said again:

“I think you’re awesome…”

By God. I did hear him right. He used the word awesome. But his words didn’t stop. I think because I had asked for clarification he felt the need to continue. And this this is what he said:

“I think you’re awesome for coming here. It takes a lot to get here, but I think you’re doing a great job.”

And then he again smiled a huge-ass smile at me, all while wearing his equally huge-ass goggles.

I thanked him and sheepishly swam away with my kick board above my head.

And you know what?

That old man totally made my day. For a split second I wondered if maybe he had mistaken me for some other chubby girl that has been going to the pool and swimming until she does hand stands and I felt bad that I’d stolen her compliment.

But then I decided not to feel bad about it because some mornings it does feel like a lot to get out the door and take a few moments to myself before Barry goes to work. And who cares if I couldn’t remember the last time I swam by my self.

Because I am awesome. 

The old man said so.

I left the pool with the whole “Pay It Forward” mindset and tried to hold onto it all day long.

I saw a guy rollerblading up a huge hill while we were parked at a light waiting for it to change and I wish that I could have found my courage to yell “You’re awesome!” at him.

I lost my mojo and tomorrow I plan to find it again….and tell someone that I don’t know that they’re really awesome.

Because even though I didn’t want to go to the pool this morning, I’m glad I did….there was a whole lot of awesomeness waiting for me there. I also didn’t want to write a blog post, but, by golly, I’m glad I did.

This must be what awesome feels like.