The End of an Era

Okay, here's the thing: I'm a bit over it.

"It" being swimming.

I've been swimming ever since I was nine years old, and now, nearly six years later, I feel like I'm drifting away from it.

When I was younger, I had this bizarre dream of going to the Olympic Games for swimming. I realize now that my dream was far fetched.

I've never been a super fast swimmer, but I've never been super slow either. I'm kinda just the person who floats around the swim deck and swims their races.

During practice I feel fine, but, a lot of the time, I feel like everyone is going fast and it's hard for me to keep up.

After I finished my first season of high school swimming, I realized how much more I liked that than club swimming. It was a different environment and I had a lot more fun there than I did on club.

That doesn't mean that I never had good moments on club though. I have had plenty.

All of our snapchat stories were up to date
 with our insanity.

This past weekend, I was at my very last Age Group State Championships with my club swim team. In the past three days alone, I have made so many new memories that I will remember for a long time.

For example, there was this one coach that was stationed close to our coach. I don't remember what team she was coaching for, but everyone on our team knows of a girl on that team. I don't know what this girl looks like or exactly how old she is, but I know her name. Her name is Eve. Her coach, who could easily double as her own mother in this situation, was always extra enthusiastic about Eve's races. She would use exaggerated hand movements and clap her hands as she screamed, "GO, EVE! COME ON, EVE! GET IN THERE, EVE! LET'S GO!" It became an ongoing joke throughout our team and I finally witness it in action on the very last day. It was seriously the most bizarre thing I have ever witnessed.

Another thing that happened at state, occurred during the relays each night. I understand that relays can be stressful. There are four times as many people in the back hallway than there are normally. One lady was in charge of lining us all up before our heat was insane though. She would continually ask us what heat and lane we were in and asked us to line up first to last. She kept doing the same up and down motion with both of her hands and had this crazy look in here eyes. She had definitely seen some shit behind those extremely large glasses she had on.

This weekend was one for the books, whether or not I actually swam well. I'm happy I was able to end the last state meet as an age group swimmer with the people I ended it with. I'm proud to say that our team helped each other throughout the few days of torturous chlorine burns and tight suits. I'm happy it ended on a good note.

Anyway, carry on.
xx Em