The story below is from our March/April 2021 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Showing up in the pool is half the battle.
I’m now a masters swimmer, which simply means that I swim, as part of an adult group, with a coach. The term implies mastery, which couldn’t be further from the truth for me, though many of my fellow goggle-d and rubber capped comrades are absolute experts, gorgeously gliding through lap after lap.
So how did I wind up here, Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, lungs screaming for air? It started with watching my nine-year-old daughter Amelia climb onto the swimming block in December. It was her first meet for the Marlins, one of Roanoke’s year-round swim clubs. She’d suffered a broken wrist in October, which had sidelined her for weeks, and she was still tentative in the water. Her first meet, her newly healed wrist. The pomp and circumstance of the event, with its whistles, timers and judges. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, twisting her mouth in that way that has signaled to me since she was two years old that she’s uncomfortable. We had already had the car pep talk, about doing hard things and facing fears head on, but I was 50/50 on whether she’d bolt and wind up somewhere on Electric Road.
Because of COVID restrictions, I had to keep my distance, watching from afar. I couldn’t guide her to the blocks, or ensure that she’d follow through. But she did. She survived the swim, and the ones that came after it that day, and was proud and happy, even though after the 100 freestyle she joked, “I thought I was going to die and my graveyard was going to be the pool.”
Courtesy of Christy Rippel
“See,” I said, wrapping the towel around her shivering shoulders. “It was hard but you did it.” After my pep talk about doing hard things, about getting vulnerable and uncomfortable and pushing through, a nagging thought pulled on me for days afterward. It whispered, “When was the last time you did that? Got uncomfortable, got vulnerable? Did hard things?”
While growing up I was forced to try new things all the time, as are most people. New classes, schools, sports and activities. This continued throughout college and young adulthood, while acclimating to new cities and jobs. My life was in motion, and the kind of energy generated from challenge is a good one, for me. It makes me feel alive and part of things.
But now I’ve reached middle adulthood, and at 42, I’m nicely comfortable in my roles and my well-worn ruts. How can I possibly dole out advice to my kids from the sidelines about change and challenge, when I don’t model it anymore? They didn’t know me when I worked to earn a college scholarship or nailed a job interview. They need to see me do hard things now.
So out of my newfound respect for swimmers, I decided I’d join Amelia and my son, Ben. I signed up for the Marlins too, though I haven’t swam seriously since 1988, on my neighborhood summer team. I showed up that first day, new and awkward. I didn’t know the swimming lingo, or any of the drills. Most masters swimmers are former college swimmers, and their strokes are refined and polished, perfected over years of work.
As a former collegiate softball player, I recognize this, I admire it. I know the work it takes to be skilled. My strokes are decidedly less refined. I don’t know how to breathe to my left side in freestyle, so I’m stilted as I try it. But in a few short weeks, I’ve learned flip turns, I’ve stopped running into the lane lines quite as much on backstroke, my breaststroke has a better glide. I show up on the days when it’s easy and days when it’s hard. The challenge of a new thing has given my brain a boost—my coach, Austin Criss, echoes in my head now when I’m grocery shopping, or waiting in the elementary school car line. I think of getting my elbow up higher on my freestyle, or keeping one goggle in the water and one out when I breathe, instead of lifting my head.
It’s hard to be the slowest one, the one with the least skill. It never gets easier, really, to be the least qualified in the room (or the pool). But there is value in showing up, in keeping to your own lane and worrying about your own goals, your own metrics even when other people one lane over are blowing by you. I’m getting to live out what I believe—show up, do the work, listen to people who know more than you do. And when I bounce those things back to my kids, the wisdom isn’t gleaned from years ago. I’m learning in real time, lane six, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
The story above is from our March/April 2021 issue. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!