By Melissa Graboyes

I’ve lived in Eugene for 15 years, and for most of those, I avoided the Y. I had been a member for months here and there: When getting back into shape after pregnancies and delivering babies, when getting my mind back into shape after losing pregnancies, when I needed a place to go with young children that wasn’t my house.

But for many years, I disliked the Y. The weight room was too crowded, the pool was too hot and I ran into too many colleagues I didn’t want to chat with while sweaty and red-faced. 

I thought about the Y again when I broke my foot in late summer 2025 and was placed in a large, uncomfortable and unwieldy boot. The doctor made clear that running, hiking, biking and weights were out of the question.

There was only one thing left: the pool. I was desperate for exercise and I had a sense that the Y was where I needed to go.

Just as I have disliked the YMCA for many years, I have also disliked swimming. I’ve done it on and off for 25 years: when training for a triathlon with my mom, when recovering from prior injuries, when a doctor explicitly told me to do it. But I certainly didn’t like it. I’d count down my laps like a prison sentence. The monotony of staring at the black line at the bottom of the pool felt like torture. If I was swimming indoors, the space felt too hot. If I was swimming outdoors, the water on the initial plunge felt heart-attack-inducing. For decades, when I swam, it was because I had no other option. 

So here I am, a couple months into my foot injury, and I want to publicly celebrate two things that I distinctly disliked before my injury: the Y and swimming.

Why have I come to like the Y? Initially, I arrived each morning grumpy and churlish. I hobbled in, only to have friendly people (mostly older than me) greet me at the front desk by name. Then I’d hobble into the locker room where I’d scowl while older ladies commiserated by sharing their own prior experiences with boots. Then I’d hobble a bit further to the pool area, where I’d gather a kickboard, buoy and water jogging belt and inevitably someone poolside would ask how my foot was doing. 

When I finally slid into the water, I’d see that in the lane next to me was a man with a single leg. Sharing my lane were a rotation of grey-haired ladies who used walkers, wheelchairs or canes to get around. In the smaller pool was a paralyzed man who needed an attendant with him to safely be in the water. There were no hard bodies here. There were just bodies — many of them soft, injured, hurt, being nursed back to their own form of normal. They were the bodies of people who wished me the best for a quick recovery.

As I showed up day after day, week after week, others showed me small kindnesses. Some nice ladies offered to return my kickboard so I didn’t have to hobble across the wet pool area. One day, a younger-than-me lifeguard grabbed all my swimming accessories for me as soon as he saw me arriving, setting them carefully by my preferred lane. 

At 6 am on a Friday morning, I was almost destroyed by this small gesture. How infrequently we see such thoughtfulness in our day-to-day interactions! I realize that what I’ve described are almost stupidly simple gestures — essentially meaningless except to the person on the receiving end. I doubt that the person who helped me even remembered it. Yet we experience such acts so rarely that it’s stunning when they occur. I’ve come to like the Y because it’s a space where such acts do occur, and where we can reflect on the small, kind gestures we’re offered.

If that’s why I’ve come to like the Y, why have I come to like swimming? One answer is because I’ve forced myself to like it. Since there is nothing else I can do for exercise for many months, I’ve decided I’ll like swimming. Another answer is that I’ve found something to enjoy. It is deadly boring, but meditative. My mind wanders and is under-stimulated for an hour. There is amplified quietness as my ears fill with water, and the inspired feeling as my body propels itself underwater. 

I’ve also had the pleasure of making improvements and being aware of those improvements. I notice that I can swim more laps than the day before and I can kick harder without pain. Rarely are we given the reason and space to pay such close attention to our own bodies, how they feel, and what they need. Unaccountably, an injury, plus the Y, plus swimming, has provided me with both the reason to pay attention and the space to do so. 

To be clear: I don’t recommend that anyone break their foot. But, if you end up in a situation where the things you usually turn to for comfort aren’t available, I encourage you to consider liking something that you’ve previously disliked. My broken foot has allowed me to move two things from my dislike to like list. Thank you, YMCA, for being full of relentlessly positive people, for providing the pool I needed for recovery, and for offering a space for so many others in our community to find what they need.