I have always been most in my element with the element of water. It never mattered if it was a lake, a bathtub, or a pool – I would jump in. My parents jokingly wondered if their daughter had come equipped with gills (despite the occasional scuba mask to scrub in the tub).
At six years old, I was given the chance to join the swim team and I honestly never looked back. For the next 12 years, I swam for the Villa Mark Mariners Swim Team. When I entered high school, I swam all four years as a member of ATWB Swim and Dive, a co-op between my high school, Willowbrook, and our sister school Addison Trail, while continuing to swim in the summer for the Mariners.
Dedication is definitely the first word that comes to mind when I hear competitive swimmer, and it fits me to a T. We rise before 5 am, jump into a freezing cold pool or work up enough sweat at a dryland workout to fill a pool, go to school all day and live the student grind, practice for two hours after school, and then (hopefully) eat dinner before 7:30 and do homework before bed, which brings about the dawn of another full day of that routine. From August to October, every year. Granted, summer swim wasn’t as rigorous but it still takes a lot of hard work to swim like that six months out of the year, every year for 12 years. Sometimes when I was at practice, I would try to do the math in the midst of a flip turn and calculate how much of my life had been spent in chlorine and a swim cap, but then I realized I wouldn’t trade a single second or 50-yard sprint of it.
All blood, sweat and tears aside, there is so much to love about the sport of swimming. It’s grueling, no doubt about that, but there are so many positive mentalities and outlooks I gained from my perspective in the pool.
I learned how to appreciate the small things, especially because such small increments of time make such a drastic difference in the outcome of a race. I learned how to laugh off mistakes, in and out of the pool. I learned the art of a wet hair, post-practice messy bun. Even though most races as a swimmer are individual (besides relays), I learned how to be the best version of myself in supporting my teammates and having them return the encouragement. I loved every second of having such supportive friends, knowing that they were running on the sides of the pool cheering me on through every lap, but also the fact that those friendships transcended the pool deck. Coincidentally, our bonds definitely became stronger than the chlorine they were formed in.
My favorite thing, though, had to be the transition between the roar of the natatorium at the beginning of the race to the overpowering quiet when I broke the surface of the water with my dive. Instantly, I became immersed in my own personal, aquatic oasis. Any time I could dive headfirst into a meet or a regular practice and have all my problems float away while I was surging forward in my swims, I took full advantage. Practice was my excuse to only be concerned with counting the times in the current set and helped me push any other stressors out of my head.
Keeping all of that in mind, I knew that last year during my senior season on ATWB and in anticipation of my 12th and final season as a VP Mariner, I wanted to honor the sport that I put so much into which in turn gave me so much in return by getting a permanent, inked reminder.
When I went to the tattoo shop on August 9, 2017, I had an idea in my head as to how I wanted it to look, but their artist far surpassed my initial idea and gave me something so special. I also didn’t necessarily want a tattoo that screamed “swimming,” even though that was why I was getting the tattoo in the first place. I wanted to encapsulate how swimming and water as an element were so important to me.
The tattoo wasn’t painless, but it only took about 10 minutes. When I saw it for the first time, it did almost bring me to tears with the sheer symbolism and the value it has added to me as a person, both in and out of the pool.
By getting the water droplet with the crashing wave inside of it, I realized that water is such a powerful force in the world. It is coursing and the majority of it is uncharted, but the real meaning behind it was that every ocean began with one drop, just like my love for swimming and water in the first place. I really admire water’s strength and resilience, and its ability to surge forward with high and low tides is definitely reminiscent of the way I try to live my life. My tattoo with the raging waves reminds me that even though I am just one person, one drop in the ocean, I have the power to make any body of water into an extension of my own.
While I did get out of my element to get the tattoo, it really is indicative of my love for water and all its channels. I will forever be glad that on August 9, I got inked as an incredible testament to the years I spent swimming which transformed me into the person I am today, and I will always love the idea that both the memories I made as a competitive swimmer and my swimming-inspired tattoo are permanent in the best way possible.