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.
