Open letter to the sport I used to love

Aver+McKay

Ave’r McKay

Dear Swimming,

Doing what you asked me to do was not easy. The 5 a.m. practices were not fun, and always being exhausted was not something that I looked forward to.

The relationship that I formed with you will affect me for the rest of my life, and we do not have a good one.

Swimming is an extremely strenuous sport. It puts immense strain on the body physically and mentally. Middle school and high school swimmers are oftentimes unstable. It is hard.

I have had countless experiences of crying because I did not want to swim. It was not good for me. I was hurting myself trying to become better.

I will never understand why there was and is any debate over swimming being a sport. Maybe it is just me, but swimming is the hardest thing that I have ever done, no debate.

You are one of the only things that has ever pushed me to my breaking point. You took advantage of my already unstable mental state and broke me down further.

You saw me struggling and looked me in my face and laughed at me.

You heard me crying and still convinced me that it was good for me.

The relationship that you and I had met the definition of an unhealthy relationship. It was borderline abusive.

In spite of all of the pain that you caused me, I still advocated for you. Why? Because I love you.

I hate you for all of the pain that you have caused me, for all of the tears, and for making me feel like I wasn’t good enough.

But I loved you.

You gave me another home, another place for me to be me without any filter.

I love the water. I am more comfortable in the water than I am anywhere else.

I met some of my best friends in the pool, met one of my favorite coaches, and found myself.

Not only that, but swimming made me so much more comfortable in my own body. I can look at myself and love myself and allow others to love me as well.

I swam for five years, from my eighth-grade year to my senior year of high school, and it started and ended on bad terms.

I began swimming to get out of the house. I certainly did not think that you would take over my entire life, but you did.

Since I’m being honest, I knew you were no good for me from the beginning. I tried to get out but it just wasn’t possible; I was in it for the long haul.

Like every relationship that I have, it took awhile to get me to fall for you. But eventually I did, and, like always, I fell hard.

All I ever wanted to do was you. I didn’t even mind the 5 a.m. practices much because I got to spend more time with you.

Sooner or later, however, I got over my deeply in love stage and realized how much you were hurting me.

I began to try to pull away, but I could never bring myself to leave.

I stayed through it all. I only began to actually pull away my senior year.

What really made me hate you was how people told me I was wrong for wanting to leave you and for actually trying to leave.

“But you’re so good at swimming.”

“You couldn’t stop swimming even if you actually wanted to.”

And my personal favorite, “If you really wanted to leave, you would have a long time ago.”

Throughout the years you have changed my life positively and negatively. But at the end of the day, I am happy we are done.