A so called “normal” summer for me and many other swimmers is waking up at the crack of dawn to swim for hours before the rest of the population wakes up. The comments I have gotten from my timed printed snapchat at 5:18 a.m. have ranged from “why are you up” to “are you crazy.” Although most people think swimmers are crazy, waking up before anyone else, taking a nice long drive to watch the sunrise. It’s the calm before the everyday rush of society. While I drive home from practice calling my friends seemingly waking all of them up, get breakfast, and take a nap before they even fully wake up. Then when afternoon rolls around it is time to work till 8 p.m. Soon enough it is time to repeat.

My “normal” summer, got changed to experience a non-swimmers normal summer. Sleeping till noon, hanging out with friends spur of the moment, and staying out late. Living the life in this way never really seemed to cross my mind other than when I really just wanted to sleep after waking up at 5 a.m. I have nothing to do everyday, by the time my friends get off of work it gets pretty late. Like a nice teenage daughter I ask my dad if I can go get dinner, the response of “if you are home by 10,” now at 9:15 how am I supposed to get home in 45 minutes and eat 15 minutes away from home. My response was I will eat and come right home. After eating very fast and having my friend leave dinner to drive me home. I run in the door at 11:15 at night to get yelled at for taking two hours. Now, It’s not like it’s 2 a.m. even if I was still under GDL it would have been 15 minutes late but WHY?!

In turn, I have decided having a so called “normal” summer is only fun when you don’t get yelled at for doing completely average things. I would love to go back to swimming at 6:30 a.m. but some things don’t happen the way you want them too. Seemingly everything happens for a reason even when you don’t want them to.