What we're gonna do now is go back...

I left this house this morning just after 7. Yep, on a Sunday. It's definitely not my normal habit by any stretch, but I have a feeling I'll be doing this occasionally for a few years. My nephew had a swim meet this morning, and since I was actually in town, there was pretty much no way I was going to miss it.

Just like the last one, it brought back a ton of memories from when I was a kid. He had his event numbers written on his arm in Sharpie. My mom was documenting all of his times in the program, and had his event numbers written on her hand, too. Parents and family members were cheering. The pool was hot and humid and smelled like chlorine. Ahhh, the good ol' days.

I saw him swim four events. His 25-yard back was great until the finish - he has a fear of cracking his head on the wall, so he slows down and forgets to count his strokes in from the flags, which makes him take too many and he ends up cracking his head on the wall anyway. If he'd stick with his game plan, and swim the same speed & count his strokes, he'd be all set. He's practiced it, but it hasn't translated into meets yet. But, he still took first and broke the swim meet record.

His 25-yard free was nearly perfect. His start was awesome, he took only one breath, and he looked like someone (or something) was chasing him. He had a personal best of 15.16 seconds, took first again, and broke the swim meet record.

The 50-yard breaststroke saw a 5-second drop in his time, and he took 2nd, but wasn't too far out of first. And finally, in the 100-yard free, he kept up with his teammate next to him through the first 60 yards. He started slipping going into the last turn, and was a bit behind. Somehow, he turned it on and caught up. We were sure he would take 2nd, but in a Phelps-like maneuver, he out-touched his teammate by two hundredths of a second to take first. The weekend's tally was 5 gold and 3 silver. Not too bad at all!

I found myself getting a bit teary when he won the 25 free. There's something about knowing he's worked hard and then watching him execute so well that makes me proud. I looked at my mom and told her it's probably good I don't have kids of my own, because I'd embarrass the hell out of them by crying all the time. She just laughed because she's the same way. We followed up with lunch after the meet. It was great to have some time with my family at the pool. It's funny how zen that can be - I guess I find my peace at different places than most, but I'm okay with that.