What Happens After It Is Gone
Above: Clairissa Myatt has been in the pool since birth and throughout college. LU Photos.By CLAIRISSA MYATT
Copy Editor
Since birth, I am pretty positive that I always gave my parents a run for their money. Whether it was the trouble I would get into, the comments that came out of my mouth or the hobbies that I chose. Having four siblings ahead of me, it was already figured how I would pursue my life.
With both of my sisters being cheerleaders and two of my brothers being the town’s star basketball players, it was assumed that I would pick one of those activities and run with it. But being the kid who always had to do something “different,” I decided to play softball, something neither of my parents grew up coaching or watching.
This is the point in the article where you are all probably scratching your head going, “Softball? I thought a swimmer was writing this article.” Don’t worry; you are in the right place, just hang in there.
You see, it is because of softball that I found the second sport neither of my parents knew anything about. I was eight years-old when I took a line drive to my left eye nearly costing my life. One hemorrhaging brain, multiply skull fractures and a broken nose later, I found the love of my life: swimming.
One year later and a new-found fear of balls, my father took me to my first swim meet at the University of Akron, the local university to where I lived in Ohio.
I still remember as if it was yesterday. There is nothing quite like the sounds and smells of a swim meet. Walking up to the door to enter the viewing deck was like the calm before the storm.
As soon as the doors opened, a huge whiff of chlorine filled my nostrils and my ears buzzed with the sounds of whistles, cheering and coaches screaming at their athletes to swim faster.
The stands were built up high over looking the pool. The railing filled with parents and fans all yelling for their sons, daughters and friends to keep going.
The one memory that sticks in my mind the most however, is when I could not see due to the standing fans. My dad was yelling at them to be seated, but given the atmosphere no one would have it. Until finally one man turned to my dad and said, “That’s my daughter down there swimming.” My dad looked at me as if to say, “Do as I say, not as I do,” and with that he turned to the man and said, “Yeah well mine is too, so scoot over we can’t see.”
At the end of the meet, he looked at me with a serious expression on his face and asked me if this is something I really wanted to do. There was something about the look in his eyes when he asked me that question that I felt as if I was signing my life away, making a decision that would last for years or even decades to come. With one swift gulp I nodded and told him yes.
Usually people would say “Little did I know that I would be swimming 12 years later,” but as I said, I knew that day that when I told him I would become a swimmer it was a commitment.
Similar to when people are in relationships and they become known as “so-and-so’s girlfriend or boyfriend” I became known as the swimmer. It was my identity, and still is to this day.
Swimming has been both the solution and ache to my problems throughout my life. Looking back I remember cursing my wide shoulders, muscular legs and poor posture. To society, they were flaws that needed fixed and being a female it made things hard.
But being 21 now, I have a new outlook and appreciation for things. Instead of cursing my body for what it is not, I thank it because without my wide shoulders I would not be able to pull myself during butterfly. Without my muscular legs I would not be able to drive my kick to the finish. It is because of those things that made my swimming career feasible.
Swimming taught me that your body is an outstanding machine, and you need it to do what you do.
It is because of the sleepovers that I had to miss that I have learned what it means to sacrifice. It is because of the tears that I have wept over lost races that I’ve learned what it means to be determined. It is because of the pain endured that I’ve learned what it means to be strong. It is because of the countless hours put in that I have learned what it means to be committed.
For more than half of my life, I have been a swimmer. With graduation coming, I have to say that I am terrified. When younger, your battles figuring out who you are, what you stand for and your identity; I never worried about it until now.
“What do I do now?” is the only thing that pops into my usually busy mind when I think about life after swimming. What will I fill my time with? What will I tell people I do? These are the questions that haunt my mind.
It is difficult to imagine leaving a world and lifestyle that has been lived for so long. The withdraw from an athletes training and competition all raises the same concerns no matter what the sport is: the physical crisis of losing an athletic body, the fear of living with regrets over unfulfilled dreams and goals and feeling a disconnect with the teammates that you had spent what felt like every hour of everyday for the past years.
The biggest adjustment that will be faced personally is the freedom of time. Swimming has taught me such diligence and I have lived by such a strict schedule my whole life.
Everything has been planned, our whole lives have had a plan. As athletes we had to be enrolled in a certain number of credits, we were told where to be at an exact time, what to eat, what to drink, the list can go on. Suddenly, it is a blank slate.
You are used to the grind, the early mornings and spending time with people you enjoyed doing something you loved with no matter how much you wanted to hate it. And then, it is over.
The cold hard truth is, no matter if an athlete goes professional or not, everyone’s athletic career has to come to an end. To find a schedule, to find a way to manage your diet and fitness alone, it is like starting a new life.
If there is anything I have learned as my swim career comes to a close, is to not fret for my future like I have been: for who I will become and how I will get there, or what any of that really means, but to cherish that it happened and to the new adventure that will be starting. To the new Clairissa, I will soon find.
“I’m not sure what I’ll do, but-well, I want to go places, and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale.”-F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Clairissa Myatt is a senior majoring in multimedia journalism. This column does not represent the opinions of iPulse, but her personal thoughts and views.
