For as long as I can remember, I’ve introduced myself to people with some variation of “Hi, I’m Sarah and I’m a swimmer.” This introduction has been more than sufficient for the past 14 years of my life, but soon, I’ll have to think of something else. With my senior season more than halfway over and no plans on continuing at the competitive level after graduation, I will officially be a swammer this coming March—I have a lot of feelings about this.
This sport has taught me some really valuable lessons. I’ve learned how to manage my time with the utmost care for each second of the day, including a shower that includes shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and face wash in under seven minutes. Swimming truly taught me the value of hard work and perseverance, even when things seem so hard you just want to quit. There is truly no better feeling than watching all of your blood, sweat, and tears (and I’m speaking literally about all of this) pay off with killer swims at the end of the season. There are days where I literally want to just quit everything, sleep all day, and never leave my room, but swimming has taught me to look beyond what I’m feeling right now to the rewards that come later. When I get overwhelmed by something, I put my head down and deal with it because that’s what swimming taught me to do.
While I used to struggle to love the muscular body that swimming gave me, I’ve also come to appreciate the remarkable things my body can do, which is something I don’t think I would have ever truly appreciated if not for the sport that puts my body through the wringer on a daily basis. I’ve learned to value the pursuit of human excellence at every level, no matter whether it’s someone swimming a best time or finally being able to do a pull-up. The human body is an incredible thing and something that swimming taught me to value in myself and everyone around me.
Swimming has also been one of the most dependable things in my life. During my father’s illness and in the aftermath of his death, the only constant thing in my life was swimming. I could go to workouts and know that it would always be the same—I knew that I would swim up and down the lane for two hours and feel my body work, hurt, and move through the water, I knew that I would hear the bubbles rush past my ears, and I knew that I would, for just a few hours, escape the realities that I was too scared to face.
The sport also gave me another family. Being a member of the swim team at Kenyon has been one of the most amazing things for me. I know that a lot of people have mixed feelings about us—we travel in packs, eat all of our meals together and usually take up four or five Peirce tables to do it, and we can seem pretty closed off to the rest of the student body—but despite our prickly exterior, we’re a really amazing, caring group of people. My 83 brothers and sisters have been around for mental breakdowns, stressful weeks of school work, and the most grueling physical work that I have ever been through. They were my first support system on campus and they continue to be my strongest support system, even though I’ve branched out and made friends outside of my group of aquatic people. And, as cheesy as it sounds, words will never accurately express how much they—and the sport of swimming—mean to me.
As I prepare to enter a new, dryer phase of my life, there is a lot of sadness that comes along with it. I will miss pushing my body to its limits every day and smelling like chlorine all the time. I’ll miss the instant camaraderie that I have with my teammates and the instant escape I have from the dregs of life. But I also know that it is time. Much like the inevitable end to a favorite book, this end is full of satisfaction and peace knowing that swimming will still mean what it has always meant to me.
Image Credit: David Torres, Sarah Lloyd, Kenyon College, Fernando Rodriguez