Last night, my best friend came over to my house to help me pick out what dress to wear for homecoming. I tried them on and got her feedback. Here’s what she had to say:
Dress One:
“You look like a disco ball.”
Dress Two:
“You look like a grandma.”
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Dress Three:
“Take that off now, please.”
Dress Four:
“You still look like a grandma.”
Dress Five:
“Why did you even order that?”
Dress Six:
“You look like a hooker who’s going to a funeral for your hooker friend who died hooking up.”
Homecoming is in four days. The dress hunt continues.
We endure vigorous, agonizing, grueling, strenuous sets.
We push our bodies until we throw up.
Our shoulders pop and crack constantly.
We wake up at four A.M. for morning practices.
We don’t only train in the pool, we run, lift weights, and basically do anything coach tells us to do.
We work and work and work for the hopes of dropping time, yet, many times, our times are stubborn and don’t budge.
We stare at a black line for hours. 25, 50,75, 100. 25, 50…
We cry at times.
We are always striving for a bigger and better goal than the one we just achieved.
“Normal” kids are watching TV; we are training.
We work nonstop, constantly, everyday to take off .01 seconds of our time.
We try our best and still get yelled at. We try our best and get rewarded.
We experience being unmotivated. We push through.
We don’t only strengthen ourselves as athletes, we strengthen our selves as people.
We suffer as a team, we grow as a team, we improve as team.
We make friends and experiences that will last a life time.
We have a second family.
We strive for that amazing feeling after working so, so hard. After giving a workout all you have, we strive for that feeling of accomplishment, achievement, effort, proudness, fulfillment.
We may forget it at times, but we love the sport.
We are swimmers.
A couple days in the past couple weeks, I have been in a slump when I go to practice. I am slower than my teammates who go and qualify for the Olympic trials. I feel slow. I push myself, yet still am slower than my teammates, I get discouraged. I feel like a failure, so I don’t work as hard as I should. I regret my performance in practice. I cry on the drive home.
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Today, I acknowledged the fact that I am on a fast team; my teammates are some of the best in the nation. I acknowledged the fact that I can be like them if I do what I do best: work hard. I acknowledged that I’m on this team for a reason.
Today, I worked so hard that my legs stung, my arms numb, my lungs burned, I got dizzy, my heart beat at what felt like a million miles an hour. At times, I was practically hyperventilating. At points, I wanted to give up, but I didn’t. I pushed as hard as I could. I missed a couple intervals, but I didn’t give up. At the end of the set, my body still ached and burned, but I felt amazing. A feeling of happiness almost beyond words. A feeling that any true athlete understands. At the end of the set, I felt the feeling that makes me remember why I love the sport. Remember why I do all of the things listed above. Remember why I’m so deeply in love with this sport.
I am so numb. So broken and hopeless. I feel like my heart is being ripped out, but I also feel nothing. I loved someone, but it was clearly so one-sided.
We had so many memories that don’t matter anymore. I have no clue what to do.
The most loyal, helpful, best person I thought I had in my life is gone.
“Don’t ever fucking talk to me again,” keeps going through my head. “Dumb ass bitch, You don’t know shit.” How could someone that loved someone say that? How could they just leave so easily? How could they not care?
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Why should I even care? I don’t deserve that, right?
Of course, no one deserves that.
I deserve someone who will love me and stay by my side. At least, that is what I have been trying to tell myself every since my best friend chose a boy over me.
synonyms: join (forces), collaborate, get together, work together.
Sweaty hugs; cheering until my throat is raw;the pre-race jitters; hard-earned Gatorade; singing to “Africa” on the bus rides; pushing through almost unbearable pain; the cheers from my coaches and team mates; the feeling of success, when all the hard training and effort pays off; the happiness of coaches bringing food, after you just pushed yourself to your physical max; the endless support we have for each other; the amount of effort we put in; the dynamic and connection between us athletes; the fact that real teammates don’t only care about how you perform, they care about how hard you try. All these things contribute to the the feeling of being part of an authentic team, which is one of the best feelings that exists.
au·then·tic
ôˈTHen(t)ik/
adjective
adjective: authentic.
of undisputed origin; genuine.
“the letter is now accepted as an authentic document”
synonyms: genuine, real, bona fide, true, veritable
In my words, the way it should be: caring and real.
I’ve been on many teams before. On some, we’ve won championships and received numerous trophies. On some, we placed last and got our asses handed to us. Winning is great, it’s what I strive to do, but I’ve realized that more than just winning that counts. I’ve realized that to have a good team, winning can’t be the only focus.
On a previous team, every day I would give my all. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, even the slightest mess-up resulted in dirty glares and angry shrugs. It made it so I was nervous to go to practice; I was afraid of my teammates; I pushed myself to the limits, because I was scared the punishment if I didn’t; and I was absolutely mortified before every game. This approach worked. I got stronger, I got better, I became a better athlete, but I forgot the fact that I love the sport.
After two years on that team, another opportunity came up, so I switched to a team with a VERY different dynamic. We pushed each other to do our best, to be our best. When slip-ups or bad days came, we encouraged each other to get better, not to feel like shit. I became so close to my teammates, I had good relationships with my coaches, I was so excited to go to practice everyday, and I pushed myself to the limits, because I wanted to get better for myself and my team. Our team performed just as well as the other one I mentioned and my love for the sport was rekindled.
Recently, I joined another team. I love both of the teams I’m on right now so much, but it’s been a long time since I have felt the feeling of happiness, appreciation, friendship, and passion as I did yesterday at my first ever cross country meet.
I know I love swimming far more than I love running, so it confuses me that yesterday, in this sport that I just joined months ago, has brought me almost as much joy as the sport I have been doing for years. I think it’s just because swimming is more of an individual sport without a large aspect of team. I think its because the swim team I’m on has people who qualify for the Olympics or on the Junior National Team and I’m so slow compared to them, it makes me feel like I’m slow, period. Maybe its because a cross country the team is only as strong as its weakest link, so everyone is needed. Maybe because in the small league we run in, I too place high and feel like a good runner.
I think all of these things are a factor, but what I know for sure is that the feeling of being part of an authentic team is one of the best feelings that exists.
So many things I want no one to know, but I want everyone to know at the same time. I want to scream them out into the void and have someone find my words and listen. A complete stranger, one who won’t judge me, though, I wouldn’t really care if they did.
I have so many things I want to write out. Emotions, frustrations… life. But, I can’t formulate the words to say to the people I want to listen, nor can I figure out how to write them on here.
So, I bought a journal. A small, leather journal that I write all my thoughts into.
I tried journaling a number of times in the past, but it only lasted two days maximum. Now, I can’t put my journal down. I write and write, sometimes words of gibberish, but they fill pages of my thoughts, pouring out of the pencil and onto the lined pages.
Now, I make sure to grab my journal and pen every night before I go to bed and I write. I write until my fingers feel numb and the lead wears down.
I guess it feels nice having an outlet to express myself. One that feels like I’m talking to many, when, in reality, I’m the only one who gets to read it. It makes me feel safe and exposed all at once, a type of feeling I never thought would be so rejuvenating.
In middle school, I was in a friend group with all girls and sometimes I think that was the happiest I’ve ever felt and sometimes I think those were the best friends I’ve ever had.
We did everything together: went to Palm Springs, got ready for stupid dances, cried together, more often laughed together, and sang together.
Everything we could do together, we did.
I remember being so sad when they graduated and went off to high school because I was left behind without the people I have grown so close to. I was also sad because I knew that we would never be as close as we used to be. I was right.
After middle school, some of us went to public school, some of us went to the expected high school, some of us started at the expected high school and switched, and one of us didn’t even go to high school in the same town.
Fast forward three years, I am a sophomore and they are juniors. I knew we would be different, but not this different.
Don’t get me wrong, change isn’t always a bad thing. It’s just different, and, more than usual lately, it’s been scaring me.
I don’t want to lose my people, but sometimes i’m afraid I’ve already lost them .
Sometimes I worry about them a lot and sometimes a little less.
Sometimes I get sad when I hear one of them did something big I had no idea about.
Sometimes I make myself so nervous I start shaking.
Sometimes I realize how selfish I am, but, sometimes, most of the time, it all comes down to: I wish that in a room full of people, we would still go to each other first.
Isn’t it ironic how, being so far away from home, I have never before felt closer to my country?
9,338 kilometers, to be exact. That’s how far away my childhood home is. My best friend, my room, my horses, the forest by my house. I haven’t looked back a lot in the past years; I don’t really miss it all that much. But, from time to time, I wonder how my life would be if I had never left Germany.
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How would it be if I would still come home every day to my dog barking and my mom talking on the phone? How would it be if we still had our family dinners every day, with the good, old German Wagenradbrot and Kochkäse. If we still went to the Biergarten after spending all afternoon at the barn; then, we would walk home, probably fight a little bit as usual; and, then, watch some sort of wildlife documentary together because we couldn’t agree on a movie we all liked. What if I still woke up to my dad feeding my dog every morning and the rain bouncing against my blinds?
I’ve realized that this part of my life is over. I haven’t spent my birthday at home since I was thirteen. My siblings are both legal adults now and go to college in California. Next year, I will too, and I will leave another home. That is okay, though, that’s how it goes. But, there isn’t a single day I don’t feel as if I owe an apology to my parents: for taking their daughter away from home too early.
When it comes to writing, I plan everything out in my head.
Even if I’m not physically writing, I’m pretty much always thinking about how and when and what words to use next.
It happens all the time: when I’m walking down the street and see someone eating alone at a restaurant, in a movie theater with my friends, whenever I’m doing anything. I start putting together bits and pieces of a story or poem, trying my best to remember it all, until I have the chance to jot something down.
My mind is constantly filled with words, phrases, and thoughts. I don’t think there’s ever been a time when it was completely empty.
But, for some reason, I can’t seem to find any words at all to explain how I feel about you.
I’ve been trying for months now, but they never seem to fit together quite right.
The thing is, I think about you all of the time. I know how it feels, but I just don’t know how to describe it.
Maybe it’s because I don’t fully understand it myself. Maybe it’s because the only messages I ever get from you are hopelessly unclear.
Whatever it is, I hope I work it out soon. Because, once I do, you’re going to have a lot of reading to catch up on.
OVS Journalism Blog 
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