How the Women in a YMCA Locker Room Helped My Daughter Become a Better Friend

At first, the women were an annoyance. These SilverSneakers ladies (there might have been one or two men), retired for one year or 20, walked into the YMCA laughing and happy, thrilled to show off a new swimsuit or brag about an improved knee. Who were they—all four dozen of them—to kick everyone out of the pool at exactly 8:40 so the lane lines could be removed for the water aerobics class that began promptly at nine?

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In the locker room, their dominance continued. Does a polite enquiry as to whether or not they are encroaching on your space matter if they then proceed to take up all the available room? These women, so confident in themselves, so beyond giving a rat’s patootie (their phrase, not mine) about what the world thought that they walked around naked using their towel only to blot themselves dry.

After I finished swimming my laps, I would shower and change as quickly as I could, ignoring advice from the women to dry my wet hair before going out into the freezing winter air. I needed to get home. I wasn’t retired. I had to get on with my day.

I had a 13-year-old daughter for whom real life was coming in hard. Back at school, after a year and a half of distance learning, the kids seemed hellbent on getting attention, even if it meant dishing out a measure of cruelty. The cameras on their phones were their weapon of choice and they had very precise aim.

One of my daughter’s friends had an argument with a boy she was previously friendly with. He had a half dozen videos of her on his phone as potential ammunition, and he quickly figured out the best way to use them. A video of the girl saying, “salt and vinegar chips,” was edited so that all that remained was her speaking the final five letters of the word vinegar. He then posted on his social channels that she was a racist and used the doctored video as proof.

My daughter was devastated. Even after the boy’s public apology and suspension from school, the designation of racist continued to hover over her friend. The friend missed class and her parents investigated other middle schools in the area she could transfer to.

“I just don’t know how to help her,” my daughter said.

That morning, at the Y, I spent more time in the locker room. A bad cold had convinced me that the hair drying advice wasn’t half bad, so after styling my hair, it made sense to keep going with a little makeup and finish getting ready for the day. That’s when I watched what was happening around me.

There was the cheer that arose when a woman returned to water aerobics after she completed her treatment for cancer. The rush to offer an all-encompassing hug to a recent widow. The iPhone thrust into faces to show pictures of a new grandchild from a new grandmother who didn’t think she’d ever get to be in the role. There were bars—this is the Midwest—brought in to celebrate a birthday. The uncertainty and nerves of a new woman joining the group and the encouraging first conversation with one of the veterans.

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Here was another group of people also kept apart for months during the same pandemic that had kept my daughter out of school, only once they were reunited, they were supportive and encouraging in their actions toward one another. 13 vs. 73. Was this about wisdom or experience? If so, what should I have told my daughter? Hang in there for another 60 years? After a few more weeks of watching these twice-weekly mini-dramas unfold, I realized that it was neither. It was simply a matter of practice. These women knew how to support another woman who needed help or wanted praise because they had supported each other for decades.

Stick by your friend, I told my daughter. Stick up for her whenever someone repeats the lie that was thrust upon her. Listen to her. Give her a hug when you don’t know what to say. But stay. Don’t walk away because it seems too hard.

The SilverSneakers women supported each other through serious illness, death, and family estrangement; big problems that they couldn’t move on from once the next issue grabbed their attention, as, with my daughter and her friends, it inevitably did.

A 13-year-old’s problems might not seem as serious, but that isn’t really the point. The point is how my daughter and her friends support each other through those problems. Being a good friend takes continual practice. Sometimes it’s easy; sometimes it takes a little work.

As these older women proved, it will always matter. It wasn’t the place or the time or the fact that they were all half-dressed that had brought out the best in the SilverSneakers women. It was years of practice and care for others that carried through. Being a good friend at 13 can make my daughter a better friend at 14 and a great friend at 24 and all the years beyond. It could only get better.

Check out Sarah C. Johns’ The Sirens of Soleil City here:

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