What Swimming Means to Me

     It's astounding how much individual power the sport of swimming gives you. It is an amazing feeling when you win one for your team, but if you keep track of your own personal best times, the feeling of winning something for yourself is even more fantastic. Practices are difficult; sometimes you just want the clock to stop so you can truly breathe. It sometimes feels like different oxygen. There is the air at the wall and there is the air you gasp for while you're swimming that may feel as if it isn't there, that there isn't enough. When you have been swimming long enough, the water becomes your enemy; at the same time it's your best friend. The water can fill your goggles with eye-stinging chlorine if they are not tight enough. It may be too warm- the heat may cause your strokes to be less flawless, for the water becomes heavy. On the other hand, it can be as freezing as a tub of ice, providing the feeling of being unstoppable. 

     My sister wrote the passage below on her blog. I could not agree more with her beautiful words despite the capitalization and grammatical errors. (Don't worry Gillybean, I won't correct anything since it's your work and I know you hate when I go all "editing wizard" on stuff.) Without further ado, "What Swimming Means to Me" by Gillian a.k.a. superpig909:
     To me, swimming is about doing a sport that I love and performing at the highest level I can. This represents that because one of the things I love most about the sport is the feeling you get after you have raced your heart out, and you can't feel your legs or arms, and your lungs burn. The feeling you get when you look up and ask the timer what your time was and see your best time yet. When you know that every second of the hours you put into into practice helped you do what what you just did. When you change what your entire team thinks of you, and what you think of yourself. It's the amazing feeling you get when your coach says, "Wow. That was the fastest I've ever seen you swim." and you know that everything you had went into that race, and it came out better than you have hoped for. And that moment is right here, with your suit catching drops of water, your heart still racing, your lungs still crying out for air, when you have achieved everything you could have wanted in that summer.