It’s the drop of a second. The drop of a millisecond, the moment you out-touch the person right next to you. It’s hitting the timing pad and looking up at that clock, that clock that has been your enemy for so many races, and seeing what you want. Seeing what you don’t expect. Seeing your hard work pay off.

But it’s more than all of that. Sure, the podiums make you seem like you’re on top of the world, and the medals hanging around your neck has more value to you than it does actual merit. The records with your names next to them, that’s pretty cool too. The way everyone gets excited, the way they all cheer for you, it fills you with something that you’d never know if you didn’t swim. The personal bests, the feeling after you know you gave it your all, that’s all wonderful and great.

But it’s more than that. It’s also all the times you wanted to cry, to get out and go to the bathroom because you feel like you can’t take one more stroke without stopping - but you keep going on, it’s being so out of breath you can’t possible catch your breath on the wall waiting less than 5 seconds before going again. It’s the constant shoulder pain, the constant ache. It’s waking up at an ungodly hour to lift and then having to go to class, or swimming and having your hair wet all day and your skin itching from the chlorine that you didn’t have the chance to rinse off. It’s the mid season-time gaining-tiredness of the winter, where the water is as cold as the air outside and you would rather do anything, ANYTHING, else than get into that pool to swim.

It’s the team bonding, the fact that you get so close, almost too close, to everyone. It’s knowing who want’s what time, it’s spending time with each other 24/7, even when you’re not at practice or team bonding. It’s suffering through those practices together, to be able to turn to the person behind you and relate to their own feelings, and to be able to laugh at a time where it’s hard to. It’s the best friends you make, it’s cheering for them and being more excited for them than they are for themselves. It’s not just being friends, or even best friends, it’s becoming a family. The kind of family that you’d do anything to protect, to keep them motivated, to pick them up when they fall. It’s forming a relationship with your coach who believes in you more than anyone, who pushes you to the limits that you didn’t think you could get past, and then some more.

It’s about your family coming to see you in the stands, and being excited for you even when you come in last. It’s about how if your family doesn’t come, that you know your whole team will be rooting behind you. It doesn’t matter if you’re the best or the worst, it doesn’t matter who comes in what place.

That’s easier said than done. You’re in your head too much, you’re putting all this pressure on yourself and on your training. You become frustrated. You’re upset. You forgot about how far you’ve come. How much you’ve worked. You forget that you don’t swim for times and places. You’re not supposed to get a best time every time. You’re allowed to lose, you’re supposed to lose. Because then it makes the victory that much sweeter. That much meaningful. That much more worth it.

Swimming is hard, no doubt. Being a swimmer though, is harder.