Team

I felt great. The water was cool, my head was clear. I was dropping time like nobodies business. I figured I'd just get in at the break and get ready for my 500 freestyle. I saw Myles getting in and I thought I'd join him. He was super excited because he had made a zones time, and his swimming made that clear. I jumped in and together we spanned a pretty good distance. I pushed off of one wall and felt great. I couldn't have been happier. I would have stayed happier if I'd have kept my head under for about a second longer. I popped up to start my breast stroke. That's when Myles's wicked left hook got me in face.

Hello again to my blog. Please make yourself comfortable because the subject of today's blog is actually chronological, not just random crap I decide to talk about. Ahem, now where was I? Oh, yes.

That's when Myles's wicked left hook got me in the face. He was doing butterfly and, as all swimmers know, it can be painful. It's especially painful when the left side of the butterfly ends up smashing your goggles in half and then forcing them into your eye at high speed. I consider myself lucky that I went fuzzy right after he hit me because otherwise it would have hurt much worse. The TV snow cleared away from my vision a second later to find that Myles had grabbed me and was apologizing repeatedly. "You look fine, you look fine....oh you're bleeding." We started swimming to the wall to survey the real damage, and as we swam he continued to slowly destroy my hopes of getting back in the water. "You're only bleeding a little......OK you're pretty bloody......you should really get out of the water."  I climbed out of the water and after about ten steps my mother snatched me. "Oh gosh, OK sit down." she sat me in her timer's chair and pressed a napkin against my face. After about five seconds of sitting unnoticed I was surrounded by people. Lifeguards giving me gauze, the pool manager pulling out gloves and asking me things. "Does it hurt....on a scale of one to ten?" He said as he pulled the gloves on. "Zero." I answered honestly. Although I knew I was bleeding and I knew it was centered around my left eye, I felt no pain. "Really? OK well I'm going to change that for just a minute." He began poking and prodding at my eye and I still felt nothing but the gloves elastic running over my face. After many moments of him prodding and examining he withdrew and told my mom that I couldn't swim until I got permission from a doctor and got that wound closed. Myles was on one knee in front of me the whole time. "Oh, man, I'm so sorry!" He kept saying it over and over. When I was no longer being bombarded by people I looked at him and said, "Nah man, it's fine." He seemed relieved but I grabbed him by the top of the head and said. "Now, you must avenge me." He laughed at this but I could tell he sensed the seriousness in my voice. I stood and the next hour was basically my mom and I running from hospital to hospital trying to get medical attention. I remember little besides the multiple pregnant mother magazines. Finally we found a doctor who was willing to glue the cut back together so it can heal properly. It was an interesting experience and I hope I never have it happen again.

I despise being surrounded and smothered by attention. I'm claustrophobic in a different sense. I don't like it when people ask me questions and make me feel in the spotlight. I never liked my skin doctor because he would always just start throwing medicine in my face. I felt like an experiment. I don't like it when everybody's looking at me at once and more people just keep coming and asking questions. I wanted to get out of the pool, tell my mom, and go to the doctor without all the poking and prodding. It makes me angry. I guess it's like my trigger situation. Even though the situation frustrated me, I came back to the pool and assured my friends I was alright. Myles gave me a hug and apologized again. Before I left I included myself in his pre-relay prayer although I wasn't in it.

Right before I left I realized something important. I looked around at all the people who grabbed me right when I stepped on the deck and it became clear that this group of kids probably cared about me more than anybody outside my own family. So much so that they really are a part of my family. Even though Lizard was the real leader of the team before I came in, and she ran the whole show, all the swimmers still accepted me into their family. I felt something that made me happy. I felt like I was really part of a team. A real team, not one of those teams where social status divides us. If we ever talk about anyone we don't refer to them as "the cool kid" or "that weirdo", we call them by their name and no matter how friendly they are they're still a part of the team. I haven't experienced a feeling like that because I've never been on a team where I was or felt important. A team where everyone's kind and friendly. You can talk to everyone because nobody is better than you, you're all equal. This is the kind of team I hope I never have to leave. Unfortunately, some of my best friends are Seniors and I won't see them for a long time after this year. It's a bittersweet kind of situation, and the team changes a little bit every year. But as long as I'm on it, it's going to be like one big family.