51 Feels Like 15

High School, arguably life's worst years for children (and their parents), have always been something of crime scene.  For parents it's an unsolved mystery, endlessly examined for clues with which to guide our children.

But now it's in their past as well.

"What if I peaked in high school" the youngest exclaims into her Cheerios one morning, with graduation around the corner.

Those 4 short years imprint so much on our psyche, from the fear of Freshman year, the false sense of being a Sophomore, the suffering of Junior year and knowing that "this counts" and then the waiting, oh the waiting, of Senior year.

Some of my strongest memories of songs, movies, concerts, tastes and smells are from those 4 short years that make up nary seven percent of my life.  

Yet every time we hear about a child not getting invited, a friend of theirs who ends up sick in the toilet, or a car that comes home with a dented fender, we feel sixteen again.  

When we say we understand how they feel, we really mean it.  But the words sound hollow, even to us.

In the 1984 movie Sixteen Candles Sam is turning 16 but her family forgets as they are caught up in her older sister's wedding, the new in-laws, the arrival of the grandparents and Long Duk Dong.

My birthday does not sneak up on me.  In advance I know what day of the week it will be and which dairy/sugar/gluten free dessert I will splurge on.

Last week my wife asked what I wanted to do.

“For what?” I asked.

There was prom, final swim meets, graduation, and the mass coordination of people, parties and plans.

In January I was back in the classroom.  A week of Executive Education to "think big" as they say in Cambridge.  I walk through the courtyard and up the steps to the cafeteria where I fill my tray.  Standing under the archway I stare out at 20 tables filled with CEOs eating lunch and in rapt conversation on everything from Bitcoin to Blockchain.

I stand there looking for an open spot.  There are jackets and sweaters saving seats.  I slalom through the tables to an empty seat and I ask if it's free.  An open smile welcomes me into the conversation.

High School never ends.

Swimming it All Away

Four o’clock in the morning is a dismal hour for parents of swimmers.

There is the chore of waking yourself, extracting the child from their bed, driving them to the pool in the dark and then trying to balance whether to fall back to sleep in the car or power through. What is harder is sleeping through your alarm, waking at 6:30 am in a panic, only to realize that the child now sets her own alarm, feeds herself and drives alone to the pool.

The question is no longer who, but what drives her?  There is no swim scholarship at the other end of the pool.  No fame, no riches.

None of that matters to her, just the satisfaction of how she feels getting out of the water after a practice or at the end of a race.  

As she wrote in one of her college essays:  “My team has become my family, the pool has become my second home, and the scent of the chlorine has become my new perfume.”

The pool is not always warm and welcoming, but in a world where there is so much communication, so many signals, so much vying for our kids’ attention, so much to do, she finds comfort under water.  

For two hours a day she has no cell phone to grab, no Snapchat streaks to contend with, no videos to like or pictures to share.  No one is calling for her attention except the water, the wall and her now-quiet mind.

There is something about the simplicity of it all that draws her in.  The rules are black and white, like the lines at the bottom of the pool.  There is a start and a stop, a beginning and an end, complete clarity, even under the murky water.

But the times improved and with it the awards and the confidence and it became a part of her.  She was a lot of things, but she was a swimmer first.  Years of leaving parties early on Saturday nights so she could get up early for Sunday practice, coming late and leaving early to endless family vacations, impossibly early mornings all conspired to form the core of who she is.

This is not a story that ends poorly with heartache or injury.  It ends the way high school ends with a final meet, improvements that come in tenths of seconds, tears for what's over, and wonder about what's next.