“Stop with the melodrama!”

Yr Fthfl Srvnt decided to no longer attend his aquatic balance-training class at the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool.
Not the pool itself, just my class.
I’d like to think my decision dismays my instructors, especially my beloved aquacise instructor.
I recently began dry land physical-therapy in a nearby hospital’s physical-therapy department. I have been doing aquatic balance-training in that pool for two or three years, or maybe even more. I was constant.
I also did balance-training on-my-own in that pool, and will continue to do so.
But I felt like I was beating my head against the wall. Many of the exercises involve standing on one leg, which for me is near impossible.
Over that time my balance got worse. It’s like poor balance is my new normal. (I’m 75 years old.)
But those instructors should not feel they failed me. What’s vastly improved is my ability to counter bad balance. I hardly fall any more, largely due to -a) extreme concentration about where I put my feet, and -b) increased ability to catch tipsiness.
One of the first persons I notified was *****-the-lifeguard, a “looker” for age-63. (She looks 40-ish on her lifeguard-stand.)
I always tell ***** she was “Step-3” away from my dreadful childhood. “Step-1” was my college, Houghton College, the first religious institution that didn’t immediately label me evil and rebellious.
“Step-2” was my wife, the first female who liked who I already was.
“Step-3” was *****. Months ago she said hello to me in passing, and I got up the nerve to later say hello back.
“No pretty girl will talk to you!” That was the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, my Sunday-School Superintendent neighbor when I was a child. Hilda, with my hyper-religious parents’ hearty approval, convinced me all men, including me at age-5, were disgusting.
Boy am I glad I said hello back. Ten years ago I woulda never said anything.
I flubbed many times since, but ***** kept talking to me. I even fell for her, for lack of a better term. But we seem to have got past that.
We now are great friends, and Hilda spins in her grave.
Before leaving I walked over to *****’s lifeguard-stand to say goodbye. “I may never see you again my entire life,” I said.
“Oh don’t say that,” ***** said. “You will too, and you know it.”
“I probably will, but after 75 years on this planet I hafta allow for that. Forty years ago a fabulous friend left for Californy. I haven’t seen him since. I looked for him on Facebook, but how am I supposed to find him among 300-400 ****** ******? Plus he wouldn’t look the same as 40 years ago.
Anyway, thank you for saying hello to me. You were Step-3 away from my horrible childhood.”
“Yeah, you told me that.”
“But I bet you don’t know who Hilda Walton is,” I said. “****** **** does, but I never told you. (****** **** led my aquatic balance-training class, and we were one-on-one before the class.)
‘No pretty girl will talk to you,’ yet here you are talking to me. And I got up enough nerve to say hello back. Ten years ago I woulda gone straight to the locker-room, avoiding you altogether.”
“So it was you as much as me,” ***** observed.
As I left, ***** came around the pool away from her lifeguard-stand. They “rotate” between two lifeguard stations.
“I may never see you again my entire life,” she wailed.
“Oh stop with the melodrama!” I shouted.
She bopped me with her red styrofoam rescue tube.