1st+Draft

=Say What?=

By: Erika Flores, 9E
As I swam the last of the remaining laps of the pool, my body surging with pain, all I could think of was: hold up a little longer until I reach the finish! When I did, I pulled myself out of the water, my body shaking like an old lady. At that moment I had this strong feeling inside of me and already a tough decision had formed in my head, one that I have never thought of facing before. I am not the kind of person to give up, and I strongly believe in the saying "Don't give up and finish what you start!" But after this day of training how to swim, I renewed my thoughts on this belief. Don't give up and finish what you start, but never on something that’s hurting you.

It was my first day, and first time, of joining swimming! I was so excited, my parents urged me to learn how to swim before we moved to Korea. There were no other swim lessons we could find that didn’t teach baby stuff like blowing bubbles or holding your breath under water, except this one. This class was for swimmers who could already swim, and they taught the class the hard core way. But I didn’t know of this little detail until I started swimming, nonstop! I wanted badly to get out of the pool and get a drink of water when I was enduring the long laps of torture, for I was very thirsty and had forgotten to hydrate before hand.

My legs were stretched to their limit, thighs pounding with pain, ears and nose filled with water, arms extremely sore from using the backstroke the whole time for almost two hours, all the while gasping for air, twisting my neck to keep my head up, and desperately trying to catch up to the others. I was lagging behind, slowing down with exhaustion. I struggled to gather the last of my strength to keep pushing forward, keep moving at least.

When class finally ended, earlier than supposed to in fact, I was so happy! It was difficult to get dressed in the changing room with my whole body burning up and fragile. Since we were let out early, the buses couldn’t take us home until later. So I bought two juice drinks and sat in the waiting lounge with my friend. She, too, was in pain of the swim class, so we were complaining for a bit about how we can’t move our arms and legs, until I came out and said, “Hey, Candice, what do you think about swimming? Why did you join?” She said, “Well, I love swimming! And this is actually my first time in an after school sport, too!” I replied, “Me too, but, do you believe in the saying ‘never give up’? I do, but after this first practice, I think, in my case, it should be more like ‘never give up, unless it’s killing you. This class is just too ... extreme for me. I don’t think I can keep going on with it.” But what I really wanted to say directly was that I wanted to quit. But how could I say that? I’ve never said those words in my life, nor will I, even at this moment. Whenever I thought about it, I never say “quit”, I always do the “run around” because quitting is never my thing.

We just sat there for a while. Her, listening to my dad’s football story that was exactly like my situation with swimming, and me, telling the story of how my dad prepared himself for the football team and was given these signs from up above during just the first practice to discontinue or it’ll further harm him. I told my friend Candice how my scenario was just the same and how I strongly believe I should discontinue myself, because I know it will further harm me as well. She says I should at least give it a try for two more weeks, “You’ll never know what’ll happen,” she says. I agreed, yet at the same time I objected, knowing in my heart I want to and should quit.

Later that night as I paced my room before bed, I thought of a few reasons why I should withdraw. I was deep in thought, and have come up with that I should actually learn and practice how to swim first before joining a group that already knows what they are doing. I was hoping, deeply hoping, the coaches would let me go and praying everything would run smoothly. I was imagining going to their office to have a talk and saying, “I deeply wish to pull out of swimming. My family and I strongly want me to drop swimming because it is more of a class for more experienced swimmers. And I am not one of those people. I know, in time, I will become a strong swimmer, but I can’t achieve that unless I learn how to swim the right way, at my own pace. If I keep going like this I will never learn. I know I may sound like I’m a quitter, but I am normally not one to just quit. I am more of someone who starts something and finishes it. But after this first practice, I have changed what I have been believing in to: Don’t give up and finish what you start, but on something that isn’t hurting you. Even though good role models always say ‘never give up’ or ‘quitting is not an option’, I have also thought about this saying, ‘Sometimes the wisest choices are the ones that don’t always follow a modeling quotation.’ And believe me, it is very hard for me to bring myself to say ‘quit’. This is the first time in my life that I have had to make a decision such as this.”

Even though it was only one practice, I have learned that if you continue to do something that is giving you harm, all that will come out of it is suffering. So it is always the best choice to drop something that will put you in danger than to keep going on with it and suffer, no matter how much you hate being a quitter. If I had continued swimming classes and hadn’t changed my beliefs then I would surely have been living in pain for a long time, physically and mentally, whether I was in or out of the water. I had made the right choice of quitting, no matter how heroic it sounded to keep going and not give up on the class.