lots more pool time

I'd never swum a continuous mile until well after I got FM (with "FM" meaning "Fibromyalgia" and "got" meaning "suffered enough to see a doctor about.") And that is an achievement. Swimming a continuous mile was not a great idea, but I had to do it, because I was at camp, and camp is where one does things like swims for too long and stays up too late to eat vats of molten sugar with ten other people, only one of whom is even remotely expected to act like an adult.

This continuous mile of mine was to impress people, such as my Uncle Sandy, who's a lifelong swimmer and generally lithe person who asked "Really?" before congratulating me. He wasn't there when it happened. My in-laws were there, and I'm not sure which of them I was trying to impress more, but I think it was the children. They've known me as Auntie Jenn, cool but sickly. Or not sickly but whiny, at least. I was probably never cool to them either (the viscous beasts,) except for the one summer when we were all together at a Boy Scout's camp and I swore that I could do it by the end of the week, when it was being counted and legitimised by the Head Life Guard.

It hurt like hell. No: it hurt like you would hurt if you'd been wrapped in heavy-duty rubber bands two days before and were swimming like that. For a mile. I gave my rooting husband the bird because he was getting video of me paddling back and forth in the bitty little pool for 88 lengths and I didn't have the air to just say "AAAAIIIIIGGGHHH, GODDAMMIT!" It hurt worse the next day, which was unfortunate (or just stupid,) because it was the last day and we had to mop floors and pack kitchenware; I was doing that feeling the rubber bands and also the areas around my head and neck where I'd been mysteriously beaten during my drug-assisted sleep the night before. But the aforementioned beasts were impressed and allowed me to feel their admiration, for a short time.

I was pained deeply and I accomplished something hard. I still find it weird that those things can co-exist, but there you go.