Reframing Nostalgia – Something Worth Missing

Reframing Nostalgia – Something Worth Missing 

Every February and March, as convention championship season unfolds throughout the nation, I discover myself pulled again in time. 

This time of 12 months, my laptop is working extra time with the variety of tabs open. The livestreams are taking part in, the psych sheets are open, and outcomes pages are consistently being refreshed. Team buses are pulling as much as natatoriums that can, for 5 – 6 days, really feel like the middle of the universe. And all of the sudden, with out warning, I’m not sitting at my laptop computer anymore: I’m standing straight behind the blocks once more. 

Conference championships have a rhythm that by no means actually leaves you. The scent of chlorine hanging heavy within the air and the sound of paper rustling as warmth sheets turn into cheering batons. The managed chaos of prelims and the electrical energy of finals. The method the minutes earlier than your race really feel like each the longest and shortest moments of your life. 

When I used to be swimming, convention season meant the whole lot. It was the place the onerous work of early mornings and late nights got here to shine. It was the place teammates turned your loved ones and help system multi function. It was the place exhaustion and perception coexisted in a method that solely athletes can actually perceive. 

This 12 months, and yearly, watching championships from the skin, I started to really feel those self same emotions, however otherwise. For a second, I missed all of it so deeply that it virtually harm. I missed the nerves of ready behind the block. I missed the squeeze of my teammates’ arms giving me one final good-luck want. I missed the sensation of strolling again to the bleachers after a greatest time, realizing you had delivered not only for your self, however on your crew. 

Nostalgia could be sneaky like that. It creeps in and makes you marvel for those who appreciated the moments sufficient when you had been residing in them. It makes you query for those who would have dealt with conditions in another way and whether or not you knew then how particular it actually was. As I sat and watched with these emotions, one thing shifted. 

Instead of wishing I might return and relive all of it, I began feeling overwhelmingly grateful that I ever obtained to expertise it in any respect. Because not everybody will get to know what it feels wish to taper for one thing that large. Not everybody will get to face shoulder to shoulder with their teammates, arms linked, with voices hoarse from cheering. Not everybody will get to race for one thing greater than themselves. 

The ache of lacking it isn’t an indication that one thing is missing within the current. It’s proof that what we skilled was significant. 

It’s straightforward, particularly in sport, to be hyperfocused on what’s subsequent. The subsequent race. The subsequent meet. The subsequent reduce. Even in “post-swimming life,” there’s a bent to look ahead; to the subsequent job, the subsequent mission, the subsequent milestone.

Conference championship season has a method of inviting us retired swimmers again, and what a present that’s. 

As former athletes, we generally battle with the transition away from competitors. The construction disappears. The nerves fade. The identification shifts. And when championship season rolls round, it may well reopen that house and produce again reminiscences with intense feelings, with out warning. 

But perhaps as a substitute of making an attempt to disregard the nostalgia, we are able to reframe it. What if lacking it’s merely proof of how fortunate we had been? Lucky to be pushed past what we thought we might deal with. Lucky to learn to carry out underneath stress. Lucky to expertise the sort of crew unity that the majority workplaces spend years making an attempt to fabricate. Lucky to “fail” publicly and learn to develop from it. Lucky to succeed and perceive the work it takes to get there. 

When I believe again to my convention championship days, the reminiscences that floor are not often occasions or locations. It’s the bus rides. The inside jokes. The quiet moments within the warm-down pool, leaning on teammates. 

To the athletes who simply completed their ultimate convention meet: let your self really feel no matter comes up. Pride. Relief. Sadness. Gratitude. There is not any proper or flawed method to really feel. 

To the underclassmen already excited about subsequent 12 months: soak it in. Even the nerves. Even the fatigue. One day you’ll miss these issues too. 

And to the previous swimmer watching from afar, whether or not it’s been one 12 months or twenty, know that the tightness in your chest when the walkout music begins just isn’t an indication that you simply’re caught previously. It’s a reminder that you simply had been a part of one thing extraordinary. 

This season, as a substitute of wishing I had been again on deck, I’m selecting to really feel grateful. 

Thankful that I obtained to dive in. 

Thankful that I obtained to belong. 

Thankful that I’ve skilled one thing price lacking.