Half-Hearted Goodbye, thoughts by Emma Liu

 Half-Hearted Goodbye

By: Emma Liu

One of my earliest childhood memories comes from the pale blue smoothness of the still pool. Fully immersed up to the thinnest slimmer of my forehead, I was lost in the empty silence of water - you. It seemed as if time had slowed to a stop; as if the chaos of the world merely inches above was blurred and blocked out. This moment was possibly the first time I met you: my dearest friend.

As I grew older, I continued to embrace you with the same eagerness, joining swim teams and surrounding myself with water. Often, I found that you gave me an escape and tore me away from reality. A single soundless dive - broken friendships and bad days - gone. A single arm stroke - young smiles - sprinkled like droplets of sweet dew. With you swaying me in your arms, I felt comforted and content. It amazed me that you could wash away the tears, amazed me that you could give endless happiness. I loved you for the fulfillment you offered solely to me.

However, with the rise of competition and age, swimming quickly replaced itself from a passion to an extracurricular. Too soon did the need to be fast, to improve, to win - come and leave me floating astray. Once a wholesome way out of reality, you turned into a burdensome path of stress. The new normality became struggle and tears - from minutes to hours, days to weeks - feeding off of you: my condensed rain cloud.  An insufficient dive added ten milliseconds to my time. Ineffective stroke was an additional twenty. Timing - an uncovered side I had never considered before, had taken over your entirety. Suddenly, an enormous load of effort, resilience, and grind was needed to maintain the persistent demand of swim coaches and parents. For a sport now much more than personal enjoyment, I could no longer find the true you.

As my race times fell and my teammates soared, I became pressured to either drastically improve or quit completely. In nostalgic remembrance of the friendship we used to have, the happiness we used to easily achieve, I pushed to keep going - keep trying. For you: my vaporized memory.

Though despite late-night training and countless changes in my technique, only my times were able to improve. While my dives began to push me ahead and my lengthy stroke guided me to first place, the childhood fondness of you evaporated into thin mist.

Yet perhaps as we each grow up - the easy pleasure found in small things such as water, becomes less and less visible. Too often do everyday stress and worry cover the beauty of clear blue ripples, too often does competition hide the innocent happiness of purely being within the water. The boundary between carefree children and thoughtful young adults is shallow yet infinitely deep. 

For you: water. My dearest friend. My cloud. My memory.

Goodbye.

I will swim for a better and stronger us.