I miss my sport, I do. I swam competitively for 13 years. That's more than half my life, and it consumed multitudes of hours each of those years. Practice, meets, watching videos of swimmers, and eating like a champion. Anyone who was friends with me in high school understood that it wasn't worth trying to make plans with me during high school swim season--being on a club team and my varsity team was exhausting.
Growing up, life was all about swimming. Both my older sister and I swam, so we spent way more time at meets than we should have, and way more money on suits, training and competition, than we needed to. We both swam the same events, and believe me, the sibling rivalry was alive and well, despite a problematic age gap.
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I miss it the way you'd miss anything that you lose. Your favorite pen, a sock--it's not a sweet feeling, but I'm not in distress. I miss it, but I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back to the chaos, the intensity, the single-minded drive. I don't want to go back to something my heart does not want. It was always a struggle to peel myself from wherever I was and go to practice. Once I decided to ditch that walk to the pool, there was too much relief for it to have been the wrong decision. It's what was right for me. It's still what's right for me- thinking about going back isn't a pleasant daydream. I just don't have that Ledecky drive.
Seeing my teammates go to meets, dual or championships, pushing each other and doing well together brings a pang of something sour. The hours I now have free to do things I would rather devote my time to is far sweeter. However, those hours upon hours spent with them, over what now seems too short a time, was beyond words. If you know any competitive swimmers, understand that they are some of the strongest people, mentally and physically, I've ever known. I wasn't giving it my all, like they were, and that was an injustice to not only myself, but to them.
One of my friends from the team will probably never stop egging me on to come back. We'll be elderly women, and she'll call me up to ask why I don't join the team again. She demonstrates this strength flawlessly through her persistence alone. However, her maintained questions will not be enough for me--but I know I want to get back in the water again, and work my way back to the speed I used to have. It felt too good to fly through the water to not want that rush again.
The water will always be one of my favorite places, the shock of the wall after driving my hand through it on a finish will always be a favorite feeling. Being inside a huddle of bodies covered in chlorine and skin-tight suits all chanting, getting pumped up will be right above it on the list, too.
