Last night I was signing in at the pool, looked up and saw familiar shades and a bag on rollers and thought, oh no, Chatty Kathleen.
It's hard to swim when Chatty is around and it doesn't matter if Chatty is accompanied by her husband, children and/or grandchildren, she's going to chat you up in spectacular fashion.
I try to make sure that I am at the opposite end of the lane when Chatty is around but I'm not fast enough and I take breaks so we end up in the same territory eventually. We even ended up in the same lane because, at one point, Kathleen was trying to avoid the kids jumping off the diving board.
I know that Chatty has broken her coccyx three times, has debilitating migraines, knows the history of porters, likes Chris Rock's Good Hair documentary, has just started driving again and feels like she never belonged to her family. I was thinking, Oh My God, how do I get myself in these situations.
Just when I was losing my patience and internally bemoaning the fact that I was behind on the lap count, Kathleen said your swimming looks really good and your form looks better. I melted.
I was struggling mightily with front crawl breathing when I met Kathleen and it feels good that I'm not in the same place right now.
Because of chatting, I stayed at the pool longer. At 9, I did my little floating thing and listened as the lifeguard continued to give her daughter deadlines for exiting the pool. In the end, it was all good.
Do you have someone at the gym or pool who interrupts your flow?