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?
No comments:
Post a Comment