What Goes Up Must Come Down

Peter, Sam, and Elise stumbled through the front door, emerging from a light, yet persistent drizzle that had fallen for over a week. 

And Peter collapsed, face down, in the doorway.

They had flown from Jordan in the middle of the night and traveled all day to get home. They had swum as hard as they could for three days straight, rising before six in the morning and not laying down to sleep until after ten at night. By the time they returned home, they were beyond exhausted. Neither Sam nor Peter would leave their bed for a week. 

The following morning, Peter had a fever. Sam showed a temperature shortly thereafter.  

The preceding weeks and months had been a grind, easily the most frenzied we'd experienced as a family: early morning swim practices, riding to the pool in a tuk before dawn through deserted city streets in the pre-morning, preternatural mist, play rehearsals, late-night parties, school lessons, French tutoring, afternoon practices again after school and Saturday mornings. The collapse was more than the effects of the red-eye flight from Amman. The collapse was the collected relief of months of hard work realized. 

And COVID.

We'd managed to avoid the virus for two and a half years, but bringing kids together from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Oman, Jordan, among other countries, with nothing but a cap, goggles, and swimsuit on was unlikely to yield any other result. If the boys were going to get it, there was no better set of circumstances to succumb to the virus. Better after the big meet then before. 

Elise ran a clinic for the next week while I had to host the biggest visit we'd had to my office in a year and plan the official opening reception for our new office building. She easily exceeded her step goal daily and provided three-meals-a-day room service like a fine bed and breakfast, exhausting herself in the process. 

After a week, they recovered enough to return to school, but Peter was still too fatigued to swim. Sam would attend two practices before their next big meet, a gathering of Sri Lankan international schools in Colombo.  

Growing up a swimmer, I'd been on their side of the two or three-day all-day swim meet many times, but this was my first time on the parent side and only now do I have a full appreciation for how much my mom sacrificed for me to swim. I know how much swimming was a part of making me the person I am today (for better or worse) and I want nothing more to provide that same opportunity to Sam, Peter, and Clementine. But, man, is it a lot. 

Elise has already been introduced to the challenges of feeding the bodies of three competitive swimmers. It is nearly an all-day effort in the kitchen, akin to work as a short-order cook. Full-time meal planning is a prerequisite. But Jordan was her indoctrination into the endurance required to support swimmers at a three-day meet. It's easier swimming. Honestly. 

After years of staring at the same black line running along the bottom of the pool, staring back at me, I walked away from swimming after my junior year in college. Even when I trained for triathlon, I only swam occasionally, relying on my swimming background and laurels (such as they were) to get me through the swim leg. It was often enough to emerge from the water at the head of the pack. But watching these kids now, I do miss it. Maybe not initial entry at 5:00 a.m. practice winter in Baltimore, or the constant shoulder pain, or dryland with medicine balls and stretch cords...I always loved the action of swimming more than being on a swim team. 

The meet in Colombo is called TISSL (pronounced "tissle"). And we spent two whole days baking under the hot, tropical sun, struggling to stay hydrated, while also keeping track of three kids' events, keeping from melting into a puddle of sweat and tears. Elise left halfway through the first day with a fever, finally succumbing to the upper respiratory infection making its rounds along with COVID and the flu. 

We've run ourselves ragged this fall. Not something we usually do. But it was for a good cause. This swim season has been transformative for all three kids. It showed them what they were capable of, imbued them with heretofore untapped confidence, and shaped their minds as much as their bodies. They're good, and it feels good to know you're good at something.  And it was a journey they decided to take on their own. They have agency over and ownership of their success. 

All Elise and I did was drive the car. And sit in the stands. And make the breakfasts. And pay the entry fees. And....