Courtesy: Charles Hartley
It feels like the night after the senior prom.
The dancing went on non-stop for hours, and the friendships were more solid and real than they had ever been before.
Then it ended. We woke up. Graduation was the next week. A drive off to college followed soon thereafter.
And we were left wishing it could all happen again, wishing the night went on forever, wanting time to go back to the night before because it was so enthralling.
This is how I’m feeling with the Olympic swimming events wrapping up last night. I wish I could keep watching Bobby Finke swim back and forth forever, with his friend and training partner Katie Ledecky cheering him on and his coach sobbing with uncontrollable joy as the irrepressible Bobby closed in on the 1,500-meter freestyle gold medal.
I wanted time to stop right in the middle of that race. Everything was perfect right then. I felt the chills and the tears of happiness in my eyes, and I wasn’t embarrassed to show those emotions; it felt good. A young man swimming his heart out for his teammates, coach, and country.
I wanted the women’s 4×100 medley relay to keep going and going—a world record for all time set by Regan Smith, Lilly King, Gretchen Walsh, and Torri Huske. I will forever remember them and what they did in that race yesterday. Four women, bonded for life by what they did together on August 4, 2024, in Paris. Americans in Paris, dazzling the world as a quartet unified around one goal: winning gold. Done.
Decades from now, they’ll get together with their spouses and kids and talk about that day they swam a faster relay than any four women ever had.
I wanted Katie Ledecky’s 1,500-meter freestyle gold medal swim to last 150,000 meters, or, heck, a million meters. I could watch her swim all day and night for weeks because it makes me feel more hopeful about what people can do, what you can do, and what I can do.
But races end, Olympics end, and obsessions end. For several months leading up to these Olympics, I’ve been thinking and writing about these swimmers standing up and launching into performing on the most regal stage, going for what they’ve worked for their whole lives.
Yet with suddenness, it’s over, with these questions lingering: What do they do next? What do you do next? What do I do next?
No matter how much we enjoyed doing something, no matter how good or bad it was, and no matter how quick it all seemed, we are called upon to look forward, think up new ways to find purpose in our lives, which is so crucial. How we serve others is the real issue.
I learned something during these Olympic swimming events and all the weeks leading up to them. I can be inspired by and relate to all of these swimmers because they wake up early and practice in relative obscurity. Few people pay attention, except for one week every four years at the Olympics.
Like them, I have been living in obscurity these past several weeks, waking up alone and riding my bike faster than I ever have for six miles each day on a quiet ocean highway, thinking, “What would swimmers do right now to prepare to win gold?” They would push themselves, knowing that was necessary to win Olympic medals.
Thinking of them, each day after the breezy bike ride, I sat down to write about Olympic swimming. If they can swim every morning to be great for years, I can write every morning to be great. We’re all just humans, and our willingness to work is mostly about overcoming mental hurdles. Just stop thinking of reasons not to write and write. Practice is everything. Greatness isn’t the point; aspiring to be is.
I am sure about little beyond this: If I don’t write every day, I probably won’t get better. If I do write every day, there’s a chance I will. And the goal is to write better; it’s a noble goal in and of itself. A painter aims to make a painting better. That’s all. And all that matters.
So the choice is self-evident: be as committed to writing better as the swimmers are to faster swimming.
I do all I can to improve. Write a sentence a different way. Experiment. See what feels, reads, and sounds better to my ear. I don’t worry about what anyone else might think. Just keep increasing the volume of sentences, knowing I might stumble upon a good one. Maybe I won’t, and that’s OK. Still, I stay with it. Because it’s worth it. It’s why I’m here.
The only thing that matters is a commitment to practice. Utterly simplistic and utterly true.
Day after day after day.
True for swimmers, true for writers.
About Charles Hartley
Charles Hartley is a freelance writer based in Davidson, NC. He has a masters degree in journalism and a masters degree in business administration.
Keep practicing.
If swimswam regulars were given a test to “Guess if this is a Charles Hartley article from the title alone.”, I think we’d score pretty high at this point.
Got this one from the title.