Swimming, 2003, Anonymous

From MemoryArchive

Who: Anonymous
What: State Swim Meet
When: 2003
Where: Texas

When I was in 9th grade, I managed to make it to the state swim meet in texas. This was an amazing opportunity, and I had worked hard to get to where I was. All that weekend, I couldn't shake the butterflies in my stomach, but I knew that if I gave it my all after that dive into the water, I would be fine. I was kind of dissappointed, because, being the only member on my school's swim team, the head coach, who was also supposed to be my coach (if only for purposes of officiality) did not seem to deem my achievment worth an afternoon of his time to come and be supportive of one of his school's state competitors. But when I looked around, and saw all the other teams and their coaches, I shook it off. I figured I could use any dissappointment or anger at not being taken seriously as an athlete as fuel during my race. Then my best friend showed up to cheer me on, and I realized that it wasn't important that some coach hadn't shown up, because the people who were really important to me and who had supported me during all my hard work were there; my parents and my friends. So I went out there and swam as fast as I could in my events. I ended up taking 3rd place in the 50 free and 2nd in the 100 free. So I hadn't gotten first place, but I still dropped tremendous amounts off my own times, and improving my own records was a great reward for having gotten to state. When I went back to school on monday, hardly anybody even realized that I had competed at a state level for the school, with the exception of a few of my good friends and my two older brothers, but I didn't care, because I knew that I had accomplished something, and that I could be proud of what I had done.