I have re-found the joy in swimming. I didn't even realize I had lost it until I found it again, but here I am, swimming with a ridiculous amount of joy – like summer levels of swim-joy. I have caught myself fully smiling mid-swim. It is glorious.

There was definitely heaps of swimming joy this summer. So many outdoor dips, but after the outdoor pools closed for the season, things started to go down hill. The pool near my home is only open for length swim for an hour on Saturdays and Sundays, so getting to the pool with a still-schedule-less baby and a toddler who finished swimming lessons at a different pool just minutes before length swim started was proving to be impossible. Combine the stress of just getting to the pool (while leaving often crying children to have lunch and be put down for naps), with lukewarm showers, often-sleeping-in-the-guard-chair lifeguards (and supervisors that didn't give a shit), and sexual harassment that was poorly dealt with by the City (and it took MONTHS afterward of me insisting on action), swimming was something I did, but there wasn't a lot of joy. It was a box to be checked off so that I could make it through the week.

But after one too many missed swims, and being stick in a months-long teething purgatory (both kids teething AT THE SAME TIME, WTF?!) and constantly feeling anxious that the man who had sexually harassed me would be there, I broke down.

I needed to swim, for my mental health even more than my physical health. And then I saw an Instagram post from a triathlete pal of a gorgeous, empty pool. WHERE IS THAT AND HOW CAN I SWIM THERE? I wrote to her. It was at a gym that opened up nearby and the pool was almost always empty, she told me.

And so, I went by later that day to see it for myself. A trainer took me on a tour of the gym, or tried to. He wanted to show me muscle-building machines and the cardio room and the basketball court and I was all, "Don't care. Never gonna use them. Where's the pool?" There there it was, a turquoise beacon of beauty. (That by some miracle is even cheaper than swimming at my former pool - !)

I've been swimming non-stop since. A few weeks ago my fella was sick and stuck working at home and though I would never wish him to be sick, it meant there was a warm body in the house during the baby's naps. That week I swam FIVE TIMES.

I know it sounds like hyperbole, but it's actually been life-changing – to be able to swim whenever I can AND feel safe. I am a better writer and a better mother and a better person to be around. I am so much happier. I do miss my fast lane friends, but having a lane, and sometimes even pool to myself is such luxury.