Pieces

I don't really understand what's going on right now. It's like i make a decision for my life and i'm content with it and it seems like i'm ready to stop stressing over it for the moment but then bam something comes up and it crashes over me once again. I told my mom that i was going to stay on with swimming through championship season in April so i can have two tapers and swim ready for high school states and win the 500 this year. Well, i was set in that and i was happy, but then today happened.
Let's flesh out this story a bit. We have two sites on our team: Lifetime Fitness on Six Forks, and Lifetime Fitness in Cary. Well our coach is Scott and, when he's not able to come to practice, we get the Cary coach. I'm open to new people, i promise i try, but this man talks down to us like we're two and nearly gave me an asthmatic attack in the middle of practice because he kept sending me too quickly and not giving me enough time to catch my breath. No. That just doesn't fly in my book. Scott's mean and stuff but to a good degree to kick our butts into action. This guy just writes down practice and says "go do it all now" while telling us his life story when we're trying to get some little bit of rest.
On to the point. Scott got "fired" today to go to this other no-name team who has no pool but apparently is going to build us one. We start taper (doing less and less yards before a meet) next week and we have a big meet in Virginia in December that we're training for. We don't have a pool or, technically, a team. All my friends are really a big reason i haven't quit the sport yet, but they say they're following Scott to this new "team" while my mom is making me stay on with lifetime (basically alone) with this Cary coach who, quite frankly, is lucky to have survived practice monday i was so angry at him.
I knew i was probably going to quit in April but i was so pumped for December and then April with our big meets but now my life is slowly crushing because mother wont let me move teams again and...i don't know. Needless to say i have a research paper i have to write, tests i need to study for, and a NaNoWriMo begging to be written and i have no abilities to comprehend work at the moment. Thanks Scott and whoever else. thanks for making me miserable once more.

NaNoWriMo. I mean, the word NO is in the acronym! 50,000 words, 30 days, it sounds pretty easy, right? wrong. that's 1667 words a day and sure the first maybe 15,000 words are easy and just flow, but then you still have 35,000 words to go and there's a whole lot of "no" going on. It's day 19 and i fell like i should be starting a diary like
"Day 3. Feeling great. On a roll and two days ahead of schedule"
"Day 10. Slowing down a bit. Running out of momentum but i think i can pick it back up."
"Day 19. My story tried to die again today but i brought it back to life once again. not sure how long i can keep this up."
i don't know what keeps bringing me back. Like the website is so happy and pumps you up and stuff with its little pep talks and "you an do it"s but i'm 9000% done with this. Though i have to finish this year. i only have 19000 left to go. that's doable, right? I've given up 4 times with my highest word count of 25,000. THIS IS MY YEAR. Granted this crap aint getting published....ever. but just the knowledge that i finished will be enough to get me through something. I'll buy myself a nice t-shirt or something. Or maybe get it bound myself so i can put it on my shelf and be like "Hey look. i wrote that. suck it."
So: moral of the story. Don't. Just. No.

I do the thing where i pour my heart out into this here post about swimming and cry a whole lot behind the screen

I don't know what to do anymore. Sixteen years I've been in the water, Fourteen I've done nothing but swim, and Ten I've swam year round, but what has it come to? For about a year now i've thought and thought and thought, is swimming still what i want to do? Normal kids had sleepovers and went on trips and to parties, but for me it was always "i can't, i have swimming". I gave up my childhood willingly to the sport, but now i don't know if i should go on with it, and it's ruining me. My mother told me we 'need to talk about swimming' and apparently my old coach had a nice long conversation with her about how its "too late" for me to worry anymore about swimming. Well, how kind is that. I know i'm not michael phelps or even the fastest kid in the lane at practice, but it still cuts deep to know that I'm not good enough in their eyes. Then my dad calls me and tells me something i've been wondering for a while myself. "Am i doing this because i love it? Or is it simply because it's routine and for the 'social' aspect?" I don't have a life outside swimming and just thinking about stopping is putting me in tears. For so long it's been my safe haven, my love, but now it's burdening me. I was thinking about swimming through college, but then it turned into up until college, then i said i was taking the summer before college off, and now i want to take my whole senior year off. I keep saying that when i'm tired, i'll stop, but i can't stop. I don't know life without it. I don't think i can go on without it. Sure it's wasting money that could be spent towards more family trips with my mom or gas to go places with my friends, but i'm known for that chlorine smell and wet hair. We've invested so much into this and i just feel like stopping will be giving the middle finger to my childhood saying "Hey you gave everything up for nothing". Mom sat through all those swim meets and booked all those hotels for early mornings and late nights of swimming. It's even getting to the point where the sport is too physically demanding with my bad shoulders, knees, hips, back, and sports induced-asthma. I really want to sit down and talk to someone, but everyone that i could talk to has a biased opinion.
My old coach: hates the guy that i'm swimming under and has done nothing but try and get me to switch teams, of course he has reasons for telling me i'm not good enough.
My mom: for some reason has some sense of duty to my coach of 6 years who just left for californina (the guy mentioned above)
My dad: never been a big person in my swimming so of course quitting is easy stuff to him
My coach now: is already peeved at me for almost switching teams, and talking to him would make sure the whole team knew by the end of practice. Either that or he'd guilt me into keeping on.
My best friend: though i love her to death and would be the best to help me, she doesn't understand swimming at all and has been telling me to quit since we met.
My own self: well i switch back and forth. I need the exercise and i love the competition but i hate having to go to practice every day and i'm tired of giving up weekends of sleep for meets. my own mind deceives me because each time i get close to saying "that's enough" then it turns on me and goes "Well you've done so much, ride it out a bit longer".
I know this is ranting and probably making no sense, but I'm shaking at the moment because this is one of the biggest decisions i've ever made. We've invested thousands of dollars easily into this and i can't bear to think of what itd do to me.I'm already slowly easing back though now that i look at it. I refuse to go to saturday practices and morning practices, and missed practices here and there are making me feel guilty, but nothing a little lie to my coach can't cure. I don't know. I make my mind up one time and then i wake up the next day and say 'maybe one more day won't hurt'.
I dunno. Why can't life be easier man?