SwimSwam welcomes reader submissions about all topics aquatic, and if it’s well-written and well-thought, we might just post it under our “Shouts from the Stands” series. We don’t necessarily endorse the content of the Shouts from the Stands posts, and the opinions remain those of their authors. If you have thoughts to share, please send [email protected].
This “Shouts from the Stands” submission comes from Lauren Clark, a high school junior who swims with the Rockville Montgomery Swim Club in Maryland.
With every crack of your heart, no matter how slight, you get a brick. With every doubt, every anxiety, anything that affects you negatively.
Though plenty regarded their first 5 pound block of red dyed clay with contempt, it was later brushed away as though it were a feather. Light and delicate, like how you may now view the situation in which you received the brick, it once cracked your heart. Like that old riddle goes, 1000 pounds of bricks and 1000 pounds of feathers still weigh the same.
With time, your bricks may have added up to a 4 bedroom 3 bathroom house. Or you may have a small shed. Either way, there is not a single person who can say without their nose growing that they do not possess a decent quantity of the object. In fact, one may obtain more of those special rectangular prisms with the greenness of their jealousy of someone else’s lack of amount.
These walls built of your deteriorated heart will stand to protect you, attempting to make sure the cold does not slither in. Barriers they are, they will also withstand your attempts to break through. Like a coin, two-faced, be careful which side you get stuck on. Remember you can always flip again to the other side, though it may not be an easy toss.
Throat closing, eyes watering, time quickening or slowing, the anxiety that comes before races may be because your bricks revolve around achievement. Too much pressure on oneself. Breathing heavy with an elevated heart rate before the buzzer has even sounded, the walls built are closing in.
Tumbling into a trance the day before a meet, eating everything you can consume as though you’d never eat again, stomach stuffed, and waking up the next day hot and nauseated– your bricks may revolve around perfection. Always pushing yourself to be the very best you can, breaking your limits for your ideal image. Sweating and hardly able to move before you’ve even gotten to the pool or left your bed, the walls built are closing in.
Making self-degrading jokes about your swimming before your race as a way to turn your bricks of insecurities into something positive, you are adding fuel to the fire and enforcing the belief that you cannot do good in your upcoming event. Lacking confidence before stepping on the block (and likely other aspects in your life), the walls built are closing in.
Every swimmer will have a set of bricks dedicated to swimming. Though many walls we cannot prevent, such as a favorite coach or close friend leaving, there are many we do construct ourselves. Several walls may be built on expectations one has set in place for themselves that weren’t achieved. Believing you must be at a specific time, you must drop a certain amount, will only hurt you in the long term. Goals are good, but when a goal becomes a requirement in your list of happiness it’s time to reevaluate your strategy and the toxicity of said goal.
The walls built aren’t necessarily bad. The bricks of pain will make you a stronger and more resilient person to future scenarios. The bricks may also help you decide when you need to take a break or reach out, something critical to prevent a possible downward spiral. Along with that, the bricks will teach your neutrality– that gaining a few seconds is not the end of the world.
As critical it is to remember everyone has bricks, it’s just as critical to remember that you do not know the reason theirs were made and the possible effects. Though nerve wrecking, if you find yourself stuck with the walls built closing in, remember you completely and undeniably own the bricks. You are in control of who you want and need to be, and with a little push and help from the outside construction workers you will be (and are already) outstanding in every aspect of your life.
ABOUT LAUREN CLARK
Lauren is a rising Junior in high school, hoping to pursue writing as a career— whether it be part time or full time. She swam for RMSC for a bit, then NCAP for 8 years of my life, and now once again I’ve moved back to RMSC.
“I love learning new languages, reading, and oatmeal is still the best food ever!”
Cool article, very well written. Last few lines really send a good message imo