The other night I watched closing ceremonies for the Olympic Games. It was playing while Greg and I were hanging out with his childhood friend and I found that I couldn’t bring myself to look away. Like a sore tooth that you just can’t stop wiggling to see if it still hurts – and every time, it still does.

As I searched for my friends from the Team and athletes I recognized, it hit me that the Olympics started without me, went on without me, and ended without me. It’s all over and now everyone is coming back to their parades and parties, telling their funny stories and showing off their medals.

After the pain of the past two months, I am a bit envious of their experiences over the same time span. But I think that what makes it all so much worse is that there were just so many moments balanced on the edge of a knife. If just one of those moments had gone my way I would have been there.

Added to that is the betrayal I felt and when I found USA Swimming actively fighting against me. A radio talk show host told me that my trust of them was my first mistake. And perhaps it was. I would not have wasted so much time naively waiting for the leadership of USA Swimming to appeal the entries or work to put me on the team as they had told me they would. It’s a lesson I won’t soon forget and hopefully others will learn from what happened to me and take a more active role in protecting their interests.

Nothing can make up for the loss of that Olympic experience. I’m sure that at some point I will think of the Olympics and Swimming and not feel so hollow but it probably won’t be soon. All I’m left with are the decisions I have to make to pursue what is right. Not because this situation will ever be made right, we passed that point long ago, but because it is the right thing to do.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 6:53 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.