Laps

I'm in at my community pool doing laps, well really I just finished and I'm in the jacuzzi writing this. Swimming is such a zen activity for me. It always makes me wonder, is life just at its core about putting ourselves in the water and swimming, one stroke at a time? I think so.

I remember my swim coach in high school, Nora. Our pool was always freezing. It was never heated and if we'd dare to complain, she'd glare at us. We would do hundreds of laps during practice. She'd blow her whistle. Come on! Faster! I'd come home starving and would fight my sisters for the last pork chop.

My favorite was always the team relays where I either swam backstroke or freestyle. I was on the junior varsity team and was better at sprinting than at long distance. I loved the fifty meter and the one hundred. I always lost my breath in the longer distances. 

When I think back to high school, swimming kept me on track during my freshman and sophomore year. When I quit the team, school started to go downhill and by senior year, well, as you know by now, that year was a disaster.

Yet, still, those years of competitive swimming taught me a lesson I  use in my life to this day. That lesson is that it's all about putting yourself out there and getting somewhere, even if it's only to the other side of the pool.