Queue the 'Theme from Rocky,' please

You have probably heard that as you age, you lose elasticity in your skin, right?
Here's how it shows up: When you go to the pool for an hour and you wear a swim cap and goggles, you can count on the imprint from your swim paraphernalia staying embedded in your skin for the next four hours.
Pretty.
Three weeks in, and my learn-to-swim project is going, well, swimmingly. I suppose I am making progress, though I would like to hammer out that whole breathing thing. If ONLY I didn't need air, right?
Learning to swim in a group setting is another challenge. I have 12 experts shouting encouragement and offering advice as they motor by me in their swim lanes or wait for me to tool along from one end to the other. I love my To Be Re friends, and I welcome their contribution ...
OK, to be honest, I struggle with the "welcome" part of that last sentence. "Shut the hell up" is what I want to say. "I'll get it." But I'm an evolved grown-up and I don't say things like that. Out loud.
Last year, when I started To Be Re, one of my biggest struggles was the jump rope. I hated that thing. I dropped some good cash in the cussing jar at home (f-bombs cost $5) while the out-of-control rope gave me welts and I clumsily tangled my feet. I watched others jump while alternating feet, then I watched them criss-cross the rope, and I got it. I studied and I got it. I cursed my way there, but I got it. I jump rope like a boxer, my friends. Queue the Theme From Rocky, please.
I know I can get this swimming thing down. I am This Close.
When I go home after the pool and see the bags under my eyes left by my goggles (as if I need anything to add to the bags mother nature blessed me with), I say, "You're a swimmer."
I'm starting to actually believe it.