At The Pool With Teenagers

Now that I'm retired, it's fun to discover the stuff that goes on during weekday afternoons.

Lately I've been swimming in a nearby community pool.  It's very different to see the kids coming in for swim team practice, different than the way I used to see teens as a high school teacher.

First, I've gotta admit envy for the girls in their sleek bathing suits. They looks pretty and toned.   Almost every one has shiny long hair, which they stuff into swim caps.  They bounce around on the pool deck, as they're waiting for swim practice to start.  Where do they get the energy, I now wonder?   Although I can remember thinking, as a kid, "why do people just walk when they can run?"  All the girls have so much to say to each other, as they're waiting to swim.  Lots of stuff probably happened at school today, dramatic stuff that will be forgotten next week.  

As I'm dressing to go home, I smile a bit as I listen to the girls in the locker room.
One girl yesterday was announcing a bit miserably that "Elmo's here today, and it's my birthday!"
After a few more complaints about it, I figure that Elmo is the new name for a menstrual cycle.  Has it really been 20 years since I cared about that arrival?

As I'm going out the lobby door, a group of boys are excited about an extra treat, hanging, ready to be won, in the snack vending machine.  They take turns trying to dislodge the food, and yell with triumph when they jostle the snack cake into the pickup door.  

So lucky, I think, as I leave the pool, not in a hurry because I can go wherever I want now.  I have time to observe the kids at play, and call up a few vague memories of adolescence for myself.  I'm so darn glad that I have time to smile at the kids at the swimming pool, chuckle at how cute they are,  now that I don't have to rush anywhere myself.