Swim is Over!

Last week was the last week of High School swimming, unless you are going to state. I am not going to state, so this was the last week of swimming on the High School team for me this year. It has been a good year, I decided that I love swim meets this year. I use to hate swim meets and do anything I could to get out of them, but now I have grown to love them and am a little sad to see them go. The surfers have meets of course (that is the non high school team that is for anyone from like 5-17), but it won't be the same without all of my Lancer and Knight friends. There will be no more bus rides and meets that you have to be checked out of school for. I am really sad about all of this, but at least I know that some of the people that I know from the HS team will be on surfers.

We had our last meet on Friday. It was a big meet, so our whole team went to this boy's house on Thursday night. Thursday was a lot of fun, all of the girls got their hand spray painted blue. The spray paint isn't coming off, but to be honest I am trying to keep it on; I like how it looks to have one blue hand, plus it makes it more like I am on a team, so my blue hand is currently making me happy because it just makes me feel kind of special. I also got my back spray painted, but that isn't as cool to me as my hand. Most of the team had blue spray paint on, and I think that it made our whole team look united and cooler because we all had blue paint that stood out compared to the other teams.

At the meet I had fun, I had several freak outs though. I got to the meet a little on edge, but my first little panic attack (I don't know what to call it) came after my first event. I was in the first event of the meet, which always puts me on edge, because I am afraid I will miss it. The event was a relay, so I was swimming with three other girls. (In a relay there are four people in a group, they each take a turn swimming a 50 or 100 of what ever stroke it is.) In my relay I was going to swim 50 butterfly. I had been nervous for this meet because I was in four events, three of them involving butterfly, so for the whole week before I had been focusing on butterfly, which mostly only succeeded in psyching myself out.

Despite my nervousness for the event, I did well. I swam it the very best I could and was in the zone the whole time. My goggles fell off, but I did well without them. When I finished my 50 my friend Jinni helped me out of the pool and said I did amazing, I could tell that she meant it and really was impressed, but for some reason I started freaking out. I started to hyperventilate a little bit (I seem to do that a lot I guess,) and saying sorry. I did good, so I don't know why I was acting like that, but I just kept saying sorry and saying that I should have done better and telling the girls in my relay that I was really really sorry.

I snapped out of my freak out pretty quickly and sat down with my friends. I tightened my goggles and ate something, but I was doing pretty well. I was good until my next event, which was a 200 IM (IM is all four of the strokes in a certain order). I was a little bit freaked out because I usually pray before an event (yes, I do, don't mock me if you have a problem with that), but at this meet I had a mental block and wouldn't allow myself to pray or to relax in any way. I couldn't just say a prayer in my mind for some reason, don't ask my why. Because of this I had a hard time calming down before or after an event.

I asked someone to cheer for me during my IM, and I did pretty good. I couldn't relax at all during the race, and my goggles fell off again, but over all I felt okay. When I finished the girl who had been cheering for me helped me of the pool, I started hyperventilating again though. I didn't know why I was so anxious, but I tried to relax. I felt a little off still, but I was again able to at least calm down a little bit.

Right before my third event we had a break. In the half hour break with no events taking place, one of my friends got hurt. I was not sure how hurt because I didn't get to talk to him, but I knew he was going to the doctor. I don't like it when people are hurt, and I couldn't relax at all for a while after that.

After the break I had a 100 butterfly. I guess the tension I had helped me or something, because I dropped quite a bit of time on it, but I refused to try and find peace or anything. I spent the whole meet feeling very edgy and jumpy, but I had a good time. I talked to some people I usually don't talk to, and was pretty much like normal by the time my last event came.

I was in the second to last event of the meet, which was another relay. I had a good team for my relay, and I asked Allie if I could borrow her goggles for the race. She said I could and she went to go get them.

I was waiting to get on the starting block when she came back. She said that my friend who had gotten hurt came back, but it was seconds before I had to go, so I had to just take her goggles and go. When I got out of the water I went and got my hoodie and took off my cap and goggles. I went over to my friend who had been hurt and waited until it was a good time to say something (some other people were talking to him too). I asked if he was okay and he said yes, so I relaxed a little bit.

After the meet the team went out to dinner. Dinner was a lot of fun, and I am glad I got to see everyone. I realized there how many people there I love and don't want to see them graduate or even just not see them until next year. I can't wait until we have a swim banquet next month. After dinner I went and hung out with some friends at Jinni's house. Even though I just spent a whole post saying how stressful the meet was, I really actually loved it and wouldn't change it for anything.