I often find myself scanning my bedroom for things in it that are unrelated to swimming. The fact is, almost everything I own, be it a poster or a CD, and everything I am, I owe to this incredible sport. I envision myself without chlorine-infested hair and skin. I picture a world where morning begins at sunrise. Most of all, it is the thought of achieving success in something besides a sport that excites me.
Swimming is life.
That is how I and most of my friends in age-groups felt as we plastered goal times and Alex Baumann posters on our bedroom walls. I ate, breathed, talked, dreamed swimming. My family often grew weary of my obsession with the pool and its domination of my life. I grew tired of it myself. But every summer I would get a break just long enough to remind me that I was incomplete out of the water.