Reminiscing (1)

There have been a few times in my life when I have second-guessed my course of actions.

In high school, my senior year, I was the captain of the school swim team. We were good. Good enough that we went to the State swim meet three years in a row. Every year, after the State Meet, our coach took all those swimmers who made it out for a fancy dinner. Well, my senior year, I had disqualified one of our relay teams at State. I swam the butterfly portion of the medley relay, and I had made my transition too early. I felt terrible about it. We were fast enough that we would have made it onto the podium, but I ruined that chance; not only for myself, but for three other guys who I really felt a bond with.

After that relay, I pretty much shut down. I considered myself a failure. I thought that the previous four years of training had been completely and utterly wasted because of one stupid mistake. I shut out my teammates and my friends when they attempted to console me.

And when the time came to go to the fancy dinner with them, I didn’t go. Instead, I had retreated into a budding relationship that that manifested in the time between the big meet and the big dinner. I thought that I could replace those feelings and bonds of loyalty with sex, in what would end up being a horrible, terrible, unhealthy relationship.

Well after the feeling of self-pity over my mistake at State had subsided, after the toxic relationship had ended, when I was able to look back on all that had happened during those months with a certain level of objectivity, I realized that I had made a mistake. Even though what happened at the swim meet was my fault, I was still the team captain and I should have been present with the rest of my team when I was able. I chose the easier path of running away from a responsibility in lieu of owning my actions.

It has been twenty or more years since I have seen any of those old teammates. I doubt that any of them will ever read this, but I hope that if they do that they will not think any less of me now for how selfishly I behaved all those years ago.