Shirley

I spend a fair amount of time in women’s locker rooms right now. I swim 3 to 4 days a week at a local workout facility. I do my running, bicycling and lifting at a different gym. I rarely shower at that particular gym because the locker room is so small. There really isn’t anywhere to get read. But when I swim, it just makes sense to shower and get ready for the day at the gym.
There is a wonderful woman, named Shirley who seems to swim around the same times as I do. Shirley is about 65 years old I would guess. Shirley and I talk a lot in the locker room while we get ready, mostly small talk. Like, she is upset that they did not open up the outdoor pool for lap swimming this summer. She loves to swim outside and just cannot believe she won’t be able to do so this summer. And do I know if they may switch that policy soon? She asks me about this policy change each time I see her, as if she believes that I possess a secret magical power that will force the pool management to succumb to my every demand. She keeps putting notes in the comment box at the front desk asking for outdoor open swim. I suggest maybe she could give the pool manager a call. She thinks she just might do that.

Here is the interesting thing about Shirley. She talks to me without a shred of self consciousness while she is buck naked. Yep, she will not have a stitch of clothing on and will walk around like it is nothing at all. Shirley is a little bit on the heavy side and her body is that an aging woman. Her stomach and thighs are full and dimpled. Her breasts are not those of the surgery enhanced woman. She wears no makeup; and her idea of doing her hair is to run a comb through it after her shower. At first, this I found the whole naked- talk-deal a little disconcerting. I don’t often stand around chatting with naked women after all. What is the conversational etiquette in that situation?. The things is, Shirley is so talkative and friendly; I knew I needed to get used to her locker room habits or find a different place to swim. Because I liked Shirley and the pool, I decided to make peace with it.

As the days passed, I started to notice the behavior of the other women in the locker room. I saw a set of two forty something women take all of their things into the bathroom stalls to ensure their privacy while they changed. The teenage girls pranced around in their bikini’s outside by the pool; yet when changing back into their street clothes they turned themselves into the wall, curved their backs, and slid their outfits back on with measured haste. I notice that I would always try to just get dressed and undressed as quickly as possible with the least amount of people seeing me, still feeling like the chubby girl I was in junior high, just dying to cover myself up again. Interestingly enough, I discovered that another group of people shares Shirley’s ease with her body. Little kids. The little kiddos ran laps around their mothers, happy as anything to be free for a few moments from their clothes, while the mothers tirelessly wrestled their children’s Gumby limbs into a swimsuit. Out of all the people I observed in the locker room, the happiest by far were the kids and Shirley.

Shirley doesn’t know it, but she has reminded me how important it is to feel good about my body and all it does for me each day, as well as how empowering it is to model self-love and appreciation for the benefit of myself and others. The simple act of her own self acceptance promoted my own self acceptance. I won’t be running naked down the streets of my neighborhood anytime soon, or joining a nudist colony, but I do appreciate the miraculous cellular development of my body and all that it does for me each day. Thanks Shirley.