Old Coot

I’m at the point in my training were I start playing little games with myself, talking to myself and talking myself into thinking that all this working out is really good for me.

Last year I decided to name my inner voice. Last week was a little tough and I actually was wondering where the hell Helen had gone. She hadn’t shown up yet or been shouting out positive reinforcement. But, I am happy to announce, she showed up yesterday. She’s still nice, but I think she went to boot camp over the winter because she’s a bit tougher than I remember.

Two weeks ago, after a 15 mile run, my big toe joint hurt so bad I thought I was going to throw up for several days. I decided to take my sock off and actually look at it and realized over the cold hard winter, that my right toe now slants real nice like waaay to the right and has a bony protrusion that accompanies it. It’s been a bit of a bitch and a pain that made me feel like I am actually (dare I say it?) getting old. Because let’s face it, do you see a lot of 23 year olds walking around with bunions?

So, now that I have an inner voice talking to me and a foot that is screaming at me most of the time, I decided that it was time to name her…her the bunion. And I have named her Agnes.

I really think I hit the name on the head with Agnes, as far as a name goes, until today. Since I have been teaching swimming lessons and training, I have been in the pool a lot and have gotten to see and chat with a lot of the “regulars”. Well, there is this one ol’gal who is crotchety as the day is long, complains about EVERYTHING, says she won’t ever come back (but always does), says the temperature is always wrong, it’s too hard to get around with her walker, and on and on and on.

Today, the pool was busy. This ol’gal was there, she was complaining about there being no space for her. I asked her if she wanted to share a lane. She told me the last time she tried to share a lane with someone the girl clawed at her with her fingernails and left a mark. I told her I wouldn’t do that and she was more than welcome to share with me.

As I swam, I began to realize I had named my bunion the wrong name. My bunion needed to be named whatever this old coots name was, because she is how my bunion sounds. As I got out of the pool, her gear was sitting on the edge. I looked down and noticed that something was written on her flotation belt, and hopefully it was her name.

As she swam the almost drowning side stroke, I waited until she was at the other end of the pool so there would be absolutely no way she could see me rearrange her things. When I felt safe, I moved the towel off the belt. And what name did I see?

MARY.

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