July 31, 2005, was the first day I believed I could become an Olympic swimmer. I was competing for the Meadowbrook Tomatoes in the 11-12 age group at the Central Maryland Swim League (CMSL) Championships, the big season finale for summer swim teams. And for the 100 I.M., I had to race against my former teammate, the evil Amy Halligan, a bulldog of a girl whose mouth was fixed in a permanent grimace. She was a professional at spinning her words to make me feel awful in my already awkward skin. But today, enough was enough. I had never wanted to beat someone this badly.

When we stepped up to the starting blocks, I stared at Amy and thought about all the nasty things she’d said. My nose was too big for my face. My ears were oversized and full of wax. My thick black eyebrows didn’t match my dirty blonde hair. When the starter pressed the buzzer and we dove in, I tore through the water. I flew through a lap of butterfly, on to a lap of backstroke, then to breaststroke, and finished with freestyle. On the final lap, I put my head down and didn’t take a breath while I cruised towards the finish.

When I slammed my hand onto the wall, I looked over to Amy’s lane. No one was there. Several seconds later, she touched the wall and snarled in my direction. I extended my hand to offer a handshake, knowing she’d hate every moment. When I hopped out of the water and asked for my time, the timer flashed me a stopwatch that read 1:08.84. My coach met me beside the pool, beaming with the news—I’d broken a longstanding league record. Craziest of all, the record had belonged to an Olympian. 

After that race, a flip switched. If I could break an Olympian’s record, then why couldn’t I be an Olympian myself? I wanted to bottle up the mixture of power and pride that I’d felt beating Amy and breaking that record. It was intoxicating and I wanted more. I wanted to be an Olympian.

***

A year earlier in the summer of 2004, my mom and brother attended a parade celebrating Baltimore’s hometown hero Michael Phelps and his Olympic victories. I refused to attend because I would have missed my own practice. They brought me back a poster that showed Phelps immersed underwater, floating just above the bottom of the pool. He was making what swimmers call bubble rings: perfect bubble spheres that float towards the water’s surface when you blow air out of your mouth in small spurts. On the poster, sleek bold lettering stated Some kids worship superheroes. Some kids become one. It remains in my childhood bedroom today.

Phelps’ team was North Baltimore Aquatic Club (NBAC), and I was recruited to join NBAC not long after my mom and brother brought home the poster. The coaches thought I could help the girls in my age group break a National Age Group relay record, which was terrifying and flattering at the same time. While my parents were afraid the team would be too intense, they we were also relieved the team trained at our summer club, Meadowbrook. This meant less time shuttling me around town.

I did help my new teammates break National Age Group relay records, and the coaches eventually placed a few of us into an elite group of swimmers with some former Olympians and Olympic hopefuls. Phelps was training with the University of Michigan at the time, but he’d saunter down the pool deck on his visits home to Baltimore and join us for a practice or two. I’d choose a lane far away because his presence intimidated me, but I would stare over in awe while we kicked up and down the pool. My poster had come to life. 

***

In the swimming world, there’s a category of swim parent very similar to the ones you see on shows like Dance Moms. There were a lot of them at NBAC, but my parents fell so far outside this group it was laughable. Mom hated these intense parents so much that she’d purposely arrive to meets late with her trademark insulated coffee tumbler. I’d later learn this tumbler housed her contraband cocktail of vodka, orange juice, and Sprite. The cocktail calmed Mom’s nerves, not because she was nervous for my swims but because I was. That same summer, I managed to get so worked up before my 200-butterfly that I had an asthma attack on the second lap. The whole crowd watched as my hyperventilating body was pulled out of the water so I could suck on my inhaler like a pacifier.

Even with all the anxiety I felt during meets and Mom’s constant encouragement to quit, I couldn’t step away. Nervous as I’d get, I still swam fast in meets and continued climbing the ranks. I figured this was part of my Olympic journey.

***

During high school, I committed to swim at the University of Richmond in exchange for a generous scholarship. My freshman year, I made the cut to swim the 800-freestyle in USA Swimming’s Summer National meet. This was the most competitive meet I’d ever qualified for, and my goal for the summer was to make the cut to swim in Olympic Trials. When I returned home from college in the spring and went back to NBAC, Phelps and his coach had returned to train for the 2012 summer Olympics. Since I was attending Nationals, I got to join the elite group and even travel with them to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs for several weeks of intensive altitude training.

While I started off feeling like a guppy again in this group, I gradually gained confidence as I worked my tail off in practices. There was even a female Olympian I kept pace with during several practices. I was realistic enough to know the chances of qualifying for the Olympic team were slim, but these were the moments where I’d believe there was a shot. What if I made the Trials cut this summer and had a fast year ahead? What if I had a race like my 100 I.M. against Amy Halligan?I felt ready to achieve this before stepping onto the blocks to swim the 800-freestlye at Nationals. I’d been training harder than ever and was uncharacteristically confident. The 800-freestyle is a long race, but I felt strong and in control as I cruised up and down the pool for 16 laps. I kept repeating the trials cuts in my head—8:50.49. When I slammed my hand into the touch pad, the clock read 8:54.35. It was my best time, but I hadn’t reached my goal. 

This marked the beginning of the end for me and the sport. Instead of having the fast year I dreamed of, I hit what the swimming community calls a plateau; I was unable to better any of my times after my summer training with Phelps and company. By my senior year, I felt like I was fighting with the water daily and then managed to slip on ice and bruise my tailbone before the championship meet. I swam okay at the championship all things considered, but I was ready to retire. When we returned to campus, it was over. 

***

It’s taken me several years to want to swim again. When I talk about my swimming career since retiring, many people ask me, “did you even like swimming?” After they hear about the early mornings, intense pressure, and ongoing disappointments, they wonder why I kept showing up. I haven’t had a good answer until now. 

Elite swimmers tend to look down on summer swimming, the arena where most of us got our start racing in neighborhood pools and fueling up on Pixy Stix behind starting blocks. While most of my peers stopped competing for summer teams when they reached their teens, that was out of the question for me. This is where I fell in love with the water. 

This summer, I purchased a membership to Meadowbrook, the pool where I swam with NBAC year-round and in the summer as a Tomato. I use a lane far away from the other lap swimmers and fall into a rhythm as I move from one side to the other. Lap after lap, I rediscover a kinship with the cool water. The memories slip through my hands with each stroke, and I eventually fall into a meditation to the tempo of my breathing.  I fish out the good feelings from these meditative swims—strength, confidence, hope—and carry them away with me and into the car. One, two, three, breathe. One, two, three, breathe.

JESSIE WALKER is a non-fiction writer currently based in Baltimore. She received her B.A. from the University of Richmond and is currently pursuing her MFA in creative writing and publishing arts at the University of Baltimore. Jessie is a swimmer, wife, cat mother, educator, and lover of anything that makes her belly laugh. Her creative work has appeared in publications including Black Fork Review and Random Sample Review.