Hi Maria, What a great debut personal essay in Age of Empathy! I live with OCD but have had times in my life when I wasn't so scared about germs and loved swimming and sauna rooms and all the perks of places like the Y. Thank you for writing about our shared humanity in such a captivating and visceral way. You almost made me want to go to the Y--and that's quite an accomplishment, lol. 💗