EPT
In a little more than 24 hours, I'll swim my first race at this year's short course national championship. I will do so after a year of character-defining tragedies and personal achievements. I don't talk about it much for fear of burdening others with my problems, but this year has at different points been both the most horrible and chaotic time in my life and the first time I've fekt like I've accomplished something meaningful and palpable. This place has helped me in many ways, by providing an outlet for my writing and my emotions, for offering a place for me to talk to people I wouldn't otherwise have met or known about things we all love, and for giving me a chance to pay that back by burying myself in absurd loads of work. Frustrating, fun, nauseating, exciting.
But on the note of competition, it's hard to explain why I would willingly sign up for the full gauntlet of the most demanding races in swimming after months of periodically debilitating spinal issues and therefore sub-par training. It doesn't make much sense to be excited at the prospect of performing no better than I've deserved, far below what I want, but that is still so. There's a quiet and profound sense of excitement, of expectation, that fuels me. This will be my first national championship swam with no expectations placed upon me and no requirements set rather than my self-imposed law of always doing everything that can be done.
Paradoxically, the void of expectation tells me that I could not have been given a better opportunity. If I crash and burn then I will have lost, undoubtedly, but I will not be hounded by disappointment or haunted by broken dreams. There are no demands, no set criteria I have to meet. This gives me freedom, the perfect stage for surpassing reasonable boundaries. Obstacles - be they the death of a friend or a challenge within sport - are things to be overcome. Steps to climb on the infinite stairway that life can feel like, a constant struggle upwards. I have faced these challenges head-on all year, and what better time to do it again than now?
On a more emotional note, thank you. If you read this or have read anything else I've written this year, if you've said a kind word, id you've offered advice, if you've cheered loudly alongside me, thank you.
Zeyna, this is for you.
