Black Clouds and Self-Doubts

Quitting the Sport I Love

Walking past the dorms, all the window shades are drawn and all the lights are out. No one is up, and even the sun hits snooze this early in the morning, but here you are now, standing by the edge of the pool or what might as well be described as an abyss. A cool breeze blows past the goosebumps covering your arms and legs, and the lack of steam rising from the pool reminds you of the frigidness that awaits. The only light comes from the clock behind you, each ticking second a constant reminder that it only gets worse from here.

3.

2.

1.

Nothing. Then, the numbing shock of the water reaches your brain, but there is no turning back now. The only way is to move forward, to keep swimming, to survive.

While this may not sound like something a sane person would put themselves through, it is one of the feelings I live for. Knowing that I am out pushing my body to its limits and chasing what no one else can fathom, all while most others are comfortable and warm sleeping in their dorm, is invigorating.

As anyone who is willing to surrender themselves to these circumstances should, I love swimming. My passion for the sport began when I started competitive swimming at the age of six, and it will remain until the day I die. Nothing is clearer than when I am swimming. On the rare occasion that I am stuck, whether it be with life or school, swimming allows me to come up with the best solutions.

As a result, it may have come as a surprise to many people when I told my coach over the summer that I was done with competitive swimming. At first, I was met with denial, as people refused to acknowledge my sincerity. The underlying issue of trying to be funny most of the time arises when, sometimes, serious matters get mistaken as terrible jokes. I had people who thought that I was just pulling a long con, but the ‘Sike, gotcha!’ never came.

Once they had accepted that I was being truthful, I was met with what is best described as bargaining. I received a myriad of messages from people reminding me of the post-graduate benefits of college athletics and questioning why I would leave the sport and team that I loved. Essentially, my friends were trying to tell me that I was single-handedly making the worst decision of my life. I needed to convince them that I was not.

There was definitely some merit to their protestations. It’s quite possible that 10 years from now, I could look back on this decision as the stupidest thing I have ever done. However, I know that won’t be the case because I did not just wake up one summer morning and decide that I was done with competitive swimming. This was a decision that had been festering in my head since the day I finished my first triathlon, one year ago.

Though possibly subconscious, my parents have been training me to be a triathlete my entire life. Even with this lifetime’s worth of training, it took until the summer before my freshman year of college to complete my first triathlon. After that, I was hooked.

Like a drug addict fresh out of heroin, I needed more. I immediately looked up the next triathlon that I could sign up for, only to find that it was on the same day as an important swim meet. Come race day, I was rested and ready to go, but my head was not in it. Physically I was capable, but mentally I was looking for the bike and run that should follow.

This was when I knew I was in trouble. Until this point, I was excited to be a collegiate swimmer, but now I began to realize that maybe, rather than being a collegiate swimmer, I wanted to be a triathlete. A seed of doubt was planted, and it only grew from there.

At first, I thought that I could ignore my dissatisfaction, continuing to swim on the team while training on the bike and running in my free time. Though school and 20-hour swim weeks quickly stole away my free time, I continued to believe I could make the impossible work.

It was not until summer that I had the time to reflect. Looking back on the last season and forward to the next, I saw I no longer had the drive for competitive swimming. There was no milestone I wanted to reach, no record I longed to own; the only reason I had to get faster was to have a faster swim split for triathlon, hardly a reason to remain on the team.

In order to have stayed on the swim team I would have had to be able to bike and run outside of practice on a competitive level meaning I would not be giving swimming my all. This would not be fair to my teammates who all give 100 percent, or my coaches who were spending their time to help me achieve my goals, or, quite frankly, to me, because I knew competitive swimming was not what I wanted to do. It was here that I knew my life as a competitive swimmer was over.

Telling my parents was hard. Telling my coach was harder. Telling all my teammates was terrible, but I hope we came to good terms. Yet the hardest part of this whole process is something I have had to deal with every day, as it lingers around my head like a black cloud. This struggle revolves around a single word: quit.

I hate the word, and, if you have been reading closely, you will notice that I have not used it once until now. Unless you are talking about smoking cigarettes, quitting has a negative connotation behind it. Society has built it up to be one of the worst things you can do, and now I am associated with it. The judgement that comes with quitting is inevitable. Many people do not ask why, because it does not matter. For society, the reason you quit does not matter. Quitting is not an option.

In other cases, people try to sympathize with me, and I cringe every time someone else tries to justify my decision for me. None of the common misconceptions, such as problems with the coaching or balancing my academics, were factors in my decision. Sure, the coach was hard at times, but at the end of the day, I was getting faster and the team was getting better. Meanwhile, though swimming 20 hours a week, I still found it possible to get mostly A’s and B’s and I never worried about my GPA. I quit swimming because I am not a swimmer; I am a triathlete.

This may be the only time I use the word ‘quit’ to describe my choice, it only to see what it looks like. Typically, I choose to use ‘left,’ or ‘stopped,’ or some other verb in its place because I adamantly believe that ‘quit’ does not correctly depict my action. Seeing it in type only reaffirms this belief. I do not identify as a quitter because I feel as though I do not fit into society’s idea of quitting. I did not just give up when things became difficult or I did not get my way. That would make me a quitter. The reasons other people attach to my decision would make me a quitter. Even if everyone reading this thinks my argument makes no sense and that I am, in reality, a quitter, I do not care. I am not a quitter because I did not quit. I made a choice. I chose triathlon over swimming. What I found was that I could not succeed in swimming and succeed in triathlon at the same time. There are only 168 hours in a week and devoting 20 of them to swimming meant I could not be the best triathlete that I know I can be.

Whether I identify as a quitter or not, this black cloud remains. Whenever I go to the pool for a swim, see all my Rollins swimming apparel that I will no longer wear, or talk with my friends on the swim team, I am constantly reminded of my choice.

Even though I know I made the right decision and am doing what I love, I am haunted by the idea that I am letting people down.

After I told my teammates that I was done with competitive swimming, and their backlash and begging finally ceased, they made me promise to become the best possible triathlete, a pact I take seriously. Every time I train, it’s not just so I can get faster but so I can prove myself. I feel the need to prove that I made the right decision choosing triathlons. My justification is measured by speed: by going faster, getting stronger, and being the best there ever was, I strive to redeem myself. Only then will this black cloud cease to circle around my head.