I’ve woken up every morning since the 100 breaststroke and found that, even though I had my doubts, I lived.  I decided that I needed to be brave.  And so I wrapped my heart in ice and built a façade of grace.  I came to the pool every session and walked and smiled and laughed.  I swam, and when no one could see, cried into my goggles.

For myself, I decided to swim the 200 breaststroke.  It wasn’t an event that I had particularly trained for.  Still, I couldn’t just give up.  But the problem was that behind the façade was something that was still recovering from a serious blow.  And sometimes the mask would crack.  It was like a hollowed shell, that without the supports to make it strong, couldn’t protect as it should.

The 200 takes heart, and I found that I just didn’t have it.  The first 35 went great, the next 50 fine, but when the time came to charge I reached into myself and found the emotional well dry.  There just wasn’t anything left.

I didn’t make it out of the prelims.  But even if I had, it would have just been failure at some other time.  I felt weak for being unable to bounce back from the 100m but I was proud that I even jumped into the water.  Before the race, when I was struggling to be strong, I could have just walked away and disappeared.  But at least I tried.

I’m not going to make any decisions about retirement now.  I haven’t made any plans at all for next year.  I had hoped to travel, and I may still do that, either with swimming or without.  If I do come back to swimming, it won’t be for anyone but myself.  I think that it would be nice to not end on a miss, to swim well, and then ride off into the sunset with my head held high.

But this ignominious exit from the highest circles of the swimming world has tickled something in the back of my brain.  Like light through the snow, a small part of me starts to wonder if I haven’t just been kicked out of a gilded cage.

Professional swimming is a good life with good money, a decent schedule (if you don’t mind early mornings), travel to interesting places, and many accolades.  But it has its opportunity costs.  While you are committing yourself whole-heartedly to one thing, you cannot do so to another.

I’ve always maintained that I am more than just a swimmer.  That I will have bigger days in my life ahead.  But moving onto those bigger things is hard to do when you are complacent with the life that you have.  The seduction of the swimming lifestyle is hard to resist.

So I’m going to think long and hard about this.  And if I do come back it will be for me, no vendettas, no thoughts for my competitors, just my own enjoyment and goals.  I’ll have lots of time to think about it.  As I write, I am on my way back home and from there, Ireland.  I feel a little bad for running away from the meet.  But there is nothing for me back there and I need some time to myself before I have to deal with everyone asking me what went wrong.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 9:04 am and is filed under tarakirk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.