Coming Up Short

Not gonna lie, I found it difficult to pick a failure to write about. Not really because I haven't failed or come up short in life but I couldn't think of something I could write a lot about, and something I could put on the blog. When I sat down and thought about it, I was able to select a topic, but how much I can write about it, well, I don't know. In the summer after 8th grade, my sister joined the summer swim team in the town, and I didn't really have a reaction. But when I found out my two best friends were on the team, I immediately signed up later that day. My first summer swimming was weird. I wanted to succeed, despite not knowing any of the strokes and me and all of my friends swimming in the slow lane, never actually completing the set we were supposed to do. Looking back at that summer, I realize I've really improved, obviously meaning that that summer wasn't my failure that I intend on writing about. Well, anyway, the winter of freshman year I joined the swim team realizing my probable spot as the worst person on the team, which didn't bother me until I saw my friend make sections in numerous events, and I was angry because I had started swimming at the same time (he also had been swimming a lot more then me since we both started, but I didn't really realize that then.) Sophomore year, I came into the season with the obvious goal of making sections. I was excited about the potential of the season, and but I came into the season looking terrible, adding on more and more time with each race. I eventually picked backstroke and breaststroke as my section swims, but one time I did backstroke and my arm was in extreme pain. I was diagnosed with tendinitis the next day, and lime's disease a couple weeks later. My swim season was shot. And there were my two close friends, the reason I joined Seahawks make sections, one even made it to finals! And all I could do was sit there and watch. Coming into Junior year, I didn't do Seahawks or Hawks (the year-round team), which I regret because it probably was the final thing that set-up this failure. Within the first two meets of the year, I was on the coach's section-watch list. There was no doubt-I was gonna get it in the 100 Breaststroke. There reached a point of the season where I was only 2 or 3 seconds off, easily droppable in the Breaststroke. But, suddenly, I started struggling, and I didn't know why. Instead of watching my time drop, it rose, race by race. I got out of the pool and threw my cap and goggles in anger. Then I got yelled at by the coach so I went to the locker room and repeated my actions. A major ear infection took me out of the pool coming down the home stretch. I got into the pool for the first time in weeks, one day before the final meet I could make sections in. I knew it, I was screwed, there was no way I could do it. And then the meet came, and I went in with confidence and nervousness. The coach showed me the meet record time, totally attainable, and it would grant me a section time. He told me I could get it, and I believed him and I believed in myself. I put my heart and soul into that race, probably more so than any other before. But when I finished and looked at the times, I saw my season end, way over the section time and my PR. I was disgusted with myself, I couldn't believe that I hadn't been able to do what I thought I could, and I was mad that I had thought I could do something I really couldn't. However, the outcome of that race has motivated me to crush that race next year, and I'm certainly not going to fail, because I hate that feeling of disgust.