If My Life Were A Novel: On Swimming, part 1

Strange as it may seem, one of the things I most looked forward to during my gap year was obsessively following the progress of my swim team. Last month they competed in the Sections and State competitions, and they did wonderfully. Waking up to my MeetMobile app telling me their times and scores was the highlight of my month, especially when I got to exchange messages with my swimmer friends celebrating their victories and the unbelievable progress made by many of the members of the team.

So congrats team. I’m so proud to have gotten to be a part of this wonderful family. You don’t know how much you all have taught me.

As some of you know, and as some of you probably guessed, last season was a tough one for me. If forced me to learn a lot, especially the kind of things about which I thought I knew, but really had no clue.

A little over a year ago, two of my closest friends knocked on the back door to my house, and spent a few minutes talking with my parents before tentatively walking down the stairs to the basement. They found me sitting on the couch watching Doctor Who, wrapped in a pool of misery and self-doubt and self-pity. They’d come after swim practice, bringing gifts of brownies and puff popcorn, hoping to offer me support, and maybe figure out what was going on.

While their friendship and support made me want to cry, I refused to explain what was wrong. I dodged their questions, giving half answers, unwilling to examine my emotions, unwilling to think critically about the situation I’d found myself in.

We were three weeks out from what felt like the most important swim meet of my life, and just a few hours earlier everything bad that could have happened in a practice happened. It took the tears waiting to be shed all season finally being let out and staring at the walls of the locker room for me to realize how deep a hole I was in.

The season had been rough for me. Frustrated by everyone else’s improvement, and what appeared to be my regression, somewhere along the line, any positive mental attitude I’d once had disappeared. Every single race became torturous and every single practice became a battleground. And soon I was filled with self-doubt, confusion, and frustration.

Only after the Worst Day, only after hitting the lowest of the lows, did I realize how desperately I wanted to get away from that spot. With this newfound determination, an early morning meeting with my coach the next day, and three weeks to prepare myself, somehow I walked into that last big meet with a tool box of weapons, ready to keep a smile on my face on that last day of competition, no matter what happened.