Why I Left SS
When you get too much of something, with some time, you become bored of it. At least that was what happened to me with synchronized swimming. Initially, when starting synchro, I still had a life. Synchro hadn’t defined me yet. And that is why I enjoyed it so much. However, when I was in 5th grade, my 2-year mark of swimming, synchro started to become my life. It was all I ever knew. Besides school pretty much all I ever did was swim. But being so young I had no judgement to notice that having this consume so much of my time wasn’t normal. I thought that it was normal to be training 6 days a week for at least 3 hours. Reflecting on it now, a 5th grader shouldn’t have to be sacrificing getting ice cream with friends to attend a sport. But as I said, I didn’t know any better. Through middle school that was how I lived my life. School, synchro, eat, sleep and repeat. Of course, occasionally I would see friends but still, I mean, looking at my friends seeing that they would get to hang out almost every day, it hurt. And as I got older, the sport required more time and practice. This created an internal mindset that if I didn’t keep up with my teammates, all the sacrifices I made wouldn’t be worth it. Eighth grade was a turning point in my synchro journey. The mindset and association with the sport both became negative. I was no longer enjoying going to practices. I didn’t enjoy the sport as much as I had used to. It seemed like a chore. I think because I was starting to mature at this age, I began to realize that the relationship between my sport and I was not healthy. I stuck it out for the rest of the year to see if this perspective would change, but it never did. When freshman year came around I was miserable. My sport started to take a mental toll on me. When COVID hit and we were all forced into quarantine, it was honestly a blessing in disguise because it allowed me to take a break from synchro. When I began to internally hope we stay in quarantine forever to never have to go back to swimming, I knew that this sport was making me completely unhappy. After a long time of inner reflection, I became open to the idea of quitting because all the hangouts, birthdays, and events that I missed wouldn’t have been worth it. But that’s the part of learning and growing. Going into sophomore year, I quit synchro. It was probably the most freeing thing I have experienced. And no, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows because I still felt like a piece of me was missing. However, at the end of the day, I don’t know where I would be if I continued to make myself miserable by swimming. I am glad I left. I needed to.
