No Defense

Physical Boundary

When an animal is vulnerable its first instinct is to run. Everyone has that feeling at some point or another. In swimming, that feeling of vulnerability is constant, to the point that it becomes second nature. That in itself is an abnormality. 

There is a level of social acceptance that all swimmers take part in. We are all in the same vulnerable state, so we all constantly look for sympathy. Shockingly we find it. In any way shape or form that you walk onto the pool deck you automatically become a blank sheet of paper. Meaning that all your features and unsavory secrets of your body are erased. You are redrawn in the image that you yourself create. If you have a positive attitude a positive image will be drawn. If you are negative and withdrawn, your scars and blemishes are the lines that define you. In summary, swimmers have developed a way around the vulnerability. We look at who you are rather than what you are. An alien concept in any normal social interaction.

Humans have the natural tendency to judge what they see and to lay claim that swimmers have somehow evolved past this habit is far fetched, but true. 

To further prove my point I would like to tell you about Mercy. Mercy was a swimmer that swam seasonally. We saw her seven months out of the year. The reason I focus on Mercy is what her first season on our team proved. In the sport you wear skin tight suits. They don't hide much of what you normally would. We train in water, so any make up you attempt to hide behind also washes off the second you jump in. Mercy tried to hide from us like any new swimmer does and just like the rest of us she paid dearly. Because after she climbed out of the pool, her hidden secrets became nasty truths. Scars ran down the length of arms. Criss- crossed her wrists like the brand of depression. A word was scrawled across her thigh.....a word you can't forget. Vengeance. Every white line was evidence against her. A girl drowning in herself or one that had been drowning and had pulled free of it. The latter of two proved correct. 

Mercy looked around her at the eyes of the coach and her new team. Then she looked down at her self inflicted scars. Her dangerous art. A silence settled over the pool deck. No one wanted to break it. Mercy's face tensed and she prepared herself and so did we. The tension doubled and tripled itself until it felt like it would explode. And then coach spoke .... breaking the awful silence. "Good work Mercy. You'll make a fine swimmer." Walking over he did the traditional hand shake and looked her dead in the eye. "It's not what we see that makes us who we are. It's what part of yourself you choose to project that defines you." His words seemed to echo across the pool and in our minds. Slowly the swimmers gathered closer to Mercy. She spoken yet, but looked over us all. Trying to guess if what he said was worth anything. She was greeted with smiles and nods. A smile began to tug at her lips until it finally blossomed into something beautiful that from face to face. Tearing up she opens her mouth to speak n a voice once again strong and clear, " Thank you." Two words that summed up the mountain of her struggles and the relief a team had brought her.

 Swimming is the only place that you are truly accepted based on who you are. Because if we didn't it would be to painful of an experience. No one likes to feel vulnerable, but we've found a way around it. The truth that humans are cruel and judgemental is a painful one, but it warms my heart that there is a solution if we only try hard enough. The fact is people will only try to fix a problem is they are faced with one and swimming has given us that.