When I was 4 years old, I asked my parents if I could join the swim team like my brothers and sister. Unfortunately, the team only allowed 5-year olds and up. Even though I don't remember it, I'm sure that I was devastated by the news because to me it meant that I would spend another year sitting in the bleachers during every practice and meet playing my barbie laptop to pass the time.

That next summer it was finally my turn. With my purple bathing suit on, purple cap, purple goggles, and purple Speedo backpack I was finally ready to take on the swimming world. Everything else from there is a blur. First, it was summer club meets, then it was SAL Winter Swimming, then it was USA Swimming, and before I knew it, I landed where I am today.

At the time of this picture, I had no idea what swimming would mean to me in 15 years. I had no idea the time it would take out of my day. I had no idea the nights it would cut back my sleep or the mornings it would make me get up. I never once had a parent tell me I had to go to practice. I did that all on my own. Hard work ethic can't be taught and I will forever be in debt to the work ethic swimming gave me.

Fifteen later years, words can't describe how I feel walking away from the pool. If I had to sum up my swimming career with one race it would be, for you swimming folks, my very last 200 medley relay at the 2016 Atlantic 10 Championships. If you ever saw me swim or knew one thing about my swimming career you probably know that I loved being the anchorman. I loved relays. Maybe you were there when I had a 102-degree fever but couldn't miss the meet because I didn't want to let my relay down. Or you could have been there at Eastern's in 2013 when our relay broke a record we thought we would never surpass. Better, yet you may have witnessed my last anchor spot.

Before this race, I took a deep breath, relaxed my aching back, and I knew what I needed to do. The anchor was the position I loved to be in. It was where I belonged. With our Spider fans screaming as loud as ever, I had no thoughts in my head during, what I now remember as, my last anchor position. However, when I plunged to the wall my thoughts started to race. I saw that we had won and I was overcome with joy, but in the back of my head I knew I could barely get out of the pool and that was the first time I saw my whole swimming career flash before me in a blink of an eye. I had spent more than a year's worth of time in a pool and it all culminated to this instance. Needless to say, I was never one to back down from a challenge, but A10's last year was the biggest challenge I've ever faced.

In the past, people consistently asked me why I swim. To an outsider looking in, it may seem like I wasted 15 years of my life in the water to ultimately get injured by it causing me to hang up my goggles. But, what most will never understand is everything that swimming taught me along the way. I have overcome obstacles, raced in pain, and basked in victory, but it is impossible to sum up everything swimming will mean to me in the future. I never swam for the fame or the times up on the scoreboard. I swam for my relay teams, who needed me as much as I needed them. I may never find something like swimming in my life again, but I wouldn't change it for the world because when I send my little girl to swim practice with her bathing suit on in the car and her goggles tightly suctioned to her eyes, I know she'll be in good hands. Just like my parents knew that the pool would help me grow up and be home for 15 years. I might not miss the early mornings, test-set Tuesdays, open water Wednesdays, or the hell that every Saturday morning presented, but I will miss stepping on the block in the fourth relay spot, taking a deep breath, scanning the pool for our competition close by, and bringing home the relay that represented so much more to us than just four fast girls.