I Am What I Am

.... I don't want praise, I don't want pity.

Every Monday starts the same in this phase of the training programme. 6.30am we all turn up at the pool and wait to be let in, all raring to get in the water and thrash out a head banger set of one hundreds. Lane 1, got to do a warm up and then 20 x times 100 meters on much tighter times than was expected of me.

This morning I was lane 2 all on my own, Billy No Mates. Steve still slapped a schedule on a kick board at the end of the pool for me and walked away. I may have lost count, OK I did lose count but there you go, there was nobody swimming in front of me, no feet in my face to hang on to either. My schedule said 15 x 100 but I thought when I stopped that I had done 16 but the time did not look right,  so who knows and between you me and the gate post, (but not tellin’ Steve)…. Who cares! Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn.

What is important is that I knuckled down and did what I thought would be a good sound work out and I added 200 back stroke on the end, then I was surprised to see that everybody else apart from Nicole in lane 1, had finished and left the pool.

I had a good swim this morning which on top of a good bike on Saturday plus club swim that evening and a good hard run on Sunday. This was spoilt by that fact that I had a lousy night sleep. I was thinking about things that I must do today.

I have a letter to write to a friend whose husband died recently and I should have, if I was any sort of decent friend, written to her a couple of weeks ago. Shameful! I will do that later but I have been putting it off because I knew it would be upsetting. I also have a family funeral Tuesday that I have been dreading. These two worries were what kept me awake.

I tried several times to go to sleep again having dropped off easily enough when we first turned in, then the faces appeared and although I generally consider myself gifted, in that I can drum up faces, voices and music in my head almost at will, and very clearly, I had needed a restful sleep last night. In the end I got up made myself half a cup of hot chocolate and read my book for a while until something in the book reminded of one of my favourite musical shows. 

It was then that the music started to take over from the worries and I fell asleep listening to George Hearne singing I am what I am from ‘La Cage Aux Folles’. Steve and I first saw this most entertaining story when it was presented as a play and we had found it by accident on French TV during a work trip donkeys years ago. It was a hilarious farce, that was also very sad and when the musical version opened in London we rushed out and bought tickets to see it. It is a gem.

So that turned my sleep into sweet dreams and this morning I could not wait to talk to our friend Anthony Towers to ask if his Am/Dram Group, Worthing Musical Theatre Company, had ever put on that show. My second question was why in heavens name not since it would be so popular in Worthing? Then I did my swim set to the same song that was still ringing in my weird little head.

The song is about somebody who becomes aware that even people that he thinks he is completely sure of and who he loves unconditionally, find that they cannot fully accept who exactly he is and expect him to behave as they would prefer so that there own smooth sailing boat is not rocked. I think there are times in many peoples lives when they would like to sing this sing at the top of their voices I know I would.

Judge the words for yourself it is not necessarily a gay song; though the line ‘time to open up the closet’ hints at that, unless, like me, your big brother turned the key on the wardrobe during a game of hide and seek when you were kids and you were left there all day and then, I  got told off and sent to bed without any tea for fooling around, when our parents got home.

I am what I am, I am my own special creation

So come take a look, give me the hook or the ovation

It's my world that I want to have a little pride in

My world and it's not a place I have to hide in

Life's not worth a damn 'til you can say, hey world

I am what I am

I am what I am, I don't want praise I don't want pity

I bang my own drum, some think its noise I think it's pretty

And so what if I love each feather and each spangle

Why not try to see things from a different angle

Your life is a sham 'til you can shout out loud

I am what I am

I am what I am and what I am needs no excuses

I deal my own deck sometimes the ace, sometimes the deuces

There's one life and there's no return and no deposit

One life so it's time to open up your closet

Life's not worth a damn 'til you can say, hey world

I am what I am