What heat? She’s made it to July and is going for the gold in ‘not-whining Olympics’
I’m really proud of myself. I’ve actually set a personal record. No, it’s not a record in any kind of athletic endeavor or competition, unless you want to count the number of times I’ve jumped off the high dive this summer.
It’s 23 times, in case you’re curious, and not one of those times did I actually do a dive. I prefer to do what I call the “pencil,” where you just take one big bounce on the board and go in feet first.
My reasoning behind the pencil is that about five years ago, a dive off a board 33 feet in the air resulted in my swimsuit top going rogue. Since then I’ve been all about entering the water feet first with my arms crisscrossed over my chest to help keep my swimsuit from wandering down to my ankles.
But enough about the high dive. Sure, I know that was a riveting story — about an older woman going almost totally topless in a city pool where she knows a lot of people, thus increasing the embarrassment factor by a million — but trust me, it’s time to focus back on my personal record.
OK, I thought about it and I’m changing personal “record” to personal “triumph.” Triumph has more gravitas and I’m all about that. I mean, really, who isn’t?
Everybody get ready because here goes. My personal triumph is tied to the middle of summer, if you count the Fourth of July as the halfway mark for summer. Yes, I know technically it’s not, but I’m a mother.
For moms July Fourth is when summer is halfway over. This is because the “mom calendar” is based on when the school year starts, and kids returning to school in mid August signifies summer is officially over. My children are now adults, but I still go by the “mom calendar.” What can I say? Habits are hard to break.
Wow, that whole calendar thing kind of derailed my announcement, so let’s try that again. How about a drumroll? Too much? Yeah, you’re probably right.
So with no drumroll (now I wish I had one), my personal triumph is that I’ve made it to the middle of the summer without complaining one single time about the heat. Not even a mention of the humidity index, and no use of data (and graphs) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s global surface temperature analysis to prove how the summers in Kansas have gotten significantly hotter in the past 10 years.
If you’re now underwhelmed and a little mad that you’ve wasted several minutes of your life reading this so far, don’t be. I’m telling you this is huge for me. It’s life changing-behavior.
Dramatically groaning and moaning about the heat in the summer is my avocation. If someone asked me to list what I’m best at, complaining about being hot would come in a strong number one.
But yet with the utmost discipline and a zealous single-minded attention to achieving a goal, I’ve managed to keep my mouth shut about the summer heat. It’s like I’ve medaled in the “Not Whining Olympics.” Forget about bronze. I feel like I’m at least a silver medalist.
Nope that’s wrong. I should get a gold solely based on the herculean effort it took for me to abandon my number one personality trait.
Do I think the whole medal thing will happen?
Sadly, there’s a much better chance of me experiencing another diving board swimsuit malfunction. But I’ll always know that I was gold medal worthy.
Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs, on Twitter at @snarkynsuburbs on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs, and snarkyinthesuburbs.com.
