Southern Waves

The Beginning of the End

It was said by one of my family members when I graduated from college that sometimes life experiences take us to unfathomably new and different heights and challenges us to be better, more well-rounded individuals. And it's a total thrill.

I believe it's also total bullshit.

You know these kinds of experiences. The new job, new significant other, different travels, marriage, new baby, new family, even death. They change you as a person, as an individual, to someone whom you might eventually not understand or even recognize. And I'm going to tell you a story how I, Bella Anne Bailey, got to be that person.

But sometimes, these kinds things don't matter as long as you stay true to yourself. The people who make your life easier? Definitely don't keep them around. The people who continually love and challenge you to be better and more hard working are the ones you want to have in your life forever. Then there are some people who will make you question why you were even put on this earth and given this Godly life. For me, that was Caleb.

After my senior year of college, I hardly recognized myself as the person who didn't, for example, find herself in New York City with someone who wasn't her boyfriend and eat ice cream out of a Mason jar. It wasn't my life experience and it wasn't anything I would expect myself to do. Ever. I was expected to, however, behave like a Bailey. My dad, Steve, was one of the most wealthy men in Macon. My great-great granddaddy Silas Harold Bailey was very prominent in the railroad industry and apparently made a lot of money, and when he died he left half his estate to my granddaddy and the other half to his predecessor. The estate, which sits on about forty acres, is home to about three hundred crops and is a working farm today. I was raised on this farm as a lady and was expected to behave like one. I was courted at sixteen by my first boyfriend JR Noonan, and the night that he accompanied me to my coming out party at seventeen, he revealed to me he had feelings for someone else, someone I didn't even know, to put it plainly. So he broke up with me, left my party, and ruined my evening.

While I was doing everything my parents wanted me to do, my heart had another agenda: swimming. Both of my parents knew it, too. I was not a lady to be courted. I was a rebel, a tomboy, and a female swimmer.

My life experience has consisted of swim practice, swim meets, and swim sleepovers with my team, including the male swimmers on the team. There were hook-ups, break-ups, breakdowns, celebrations, birthdays, you name it. We were a family. My second family was my swim team in high school, and my third family was the most important, the friends I made in college.

Some people, including some members of my family, told me I should go to a support group for this. I am addicted to my sport, and swimming is my life. It started when I was in the fifth grade when I saw footage of Amy Van Dyken win gold in the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta. I was so elated with her win. I asked my dad if I could just start swimming competitively. He and I fought over the fact that I wanted to swim, instead of being a role model for the town I lived in and become a southern belle, for a few months and then he allowed me to attend some high school swim meets. I was also asked to use the timers during meets, I would time races and record them on a clipboard. Back then the schools did not have the proper equipment to use during meets.

I also never had a real trainer until I got to high school. There was a scout in the stands who saw my 200 meter butterfly and asked me if I was willing to start training as a competitive swimmer.

After the catastrophe that was my introduction into southern society, I left school my junior year for six months to train with an elite Olympic swimming program. My parents then pulled me out so I could finish my senior year of high school on time and graduate. I decided to attend East Georgia University in Scarlett, to train competitively and finish a degree in Sports Communications. After I was done with the sport, I wanted to either become a newspaper journalist or be on television as a sports reporter.