[Gráinne]

Well, firstly, I don't know what got under my bonnet today but I couldn't work it out in words. So, I took it into the pool. One hour later, I still don't know exactly what was wrong but by Jove, I cleared out my brain and I was tingling. No wonder I'm always scrooging around in my seat when I see my counselor; maybe I do my best therapy when in motion.

The other day, I was doing a jog around the track when I kept glancing over at a group of four women lifting barbells under the instruction of a guy I'll call Rambo. They were working hard, but Rambo was being supportive and encouraging, not yelling. I kept going round and round, just to watch them. I was mesmerized. Of course, what is probably a very poor idea began to germinate, and the attack of the 50-foot voice began. It went like this:

(In my mother's voice)"You won't look like a lady!" My rebuttal: What the hell does that mean? If I've learned anything from this site, it's that there are eleventy billion ways to look, and that it's OK to break all the "rules". In fact, I don't have to look like someone else's idea of a gender. I can just look like me!

I do understand my mom came from an era way before women's sports were acceptable. Later in life, she enjoyed swimming, but her attitudes were hard to change. Women of her generation didn't sweat; to do that meant you were doing heavy labor and therefore weren't a "lady". Hell, my high school had two gyms; one for the boys and a half-sized one for girls. I was short but always loved basketball. However, I was shunted into field hockey. You get the idea. Women of a certain time surely didn't throw barbells over their heads. Maybe I'm confronting long-held beliefs that I never examined.

Anyway, I waited until the women left and Rambo was writing a workout on a board. It took me two more times around the track before I got up the nerve to ask what they were doing. Rambo said he and the class were watching me watch them! I was so embarrassed, but he said they're used to it and there was no offense; in fact, they consider it a compliment.

Long story longer, I think I will attend the intro class on Saturday morning. This will either be completely badass, or as ill-advised as yoga at 110 degrees (and you know how that turned out), and probably somewhere in the middle.