Highs, lows and life lessons

Hello! I’m back again.

Asher had another swim meet out of town this past weekend (actually, in my HOME TOWN and versus the swim team that I swam for briefly in elementary school). We stayed with my parents to avoid driving back and forth. It was a great weekend overall. Like last time, pretty relaxing. Lots of just hanging around, watching some movies, etc.

On the swimming front, it was kind of one of those “character building” weekends. 🙂

Actually, Asher did awesome- he swam lifetime best times in 5 out of his 6 races and did really well. He also met a big personal goal of swimming his 50 yard freestyle in less than 30 seconds- a kind of “big deal”/ milestone marker in the youth swimming world. (He’d been chasing that goal hard at the end of last season, but then…COVID….) So, he was pretty excited to check that off.

BUT…where there are mountains, there are valleys. 🙂

His even bigger goal was to achieve a “state cut” (qualifying time) in at least one event, which would punch his ticket to the Wisconsin State Meet next weekend. We all knew this was a bit of a longshot, because he just barely aged up to the much more difficult 11-12 year old bracket a couple months ago (meaning, he is literally the youngest of the group). Even so, he felt he had a shot and was determined to give it his all.

He swam his little heart out but still fell short. 😦 On one race his time was within 1% of the qualifying time standard!! So close, but no cigar. He went back and even did a time trial to give it one more shot, but still just missed it. Poor buddy. He was SAD.

We couldn’t spectate, so we had to watch the live stream online….and when we picked up him, he had tears in his eyes. He barely said a word, but I know he was crushed. That’s the hardest part, for me…I hate seeing anyone disappointed, especially my kids!! But, I know that’s just life. No real way around it, unfortunately.

He got over it pretty quickly and was fine, overall. He didn’t seem to sit and dwell on it. Fortunately, he will be in the 11-12 bracket for a while now, so I’m sure he will achieve the cuts by the summer meet or next winter. I still felt bad seeing him sad, though.

Yesterday I was thinking about it again and felt a pang of disappointment again for him.

I texted Ivan and said, “I feel bad for Asher….”. He wrote back and said, “Why? These types of things are what make you grow as a person and form your character. If life were always so easy, everyone would be a super successful superstar.” I then replied and said, “I know, but he has experienced these disappointments other times too already since he started swimming. Isn’t that enough??? Hahaha..😜” He said, “You can’t expect that he will suffer one single disappointment in his life and that’s it! Not realistic….”

I know that’s true! It’s all just part of the journey.

In the big picture, I’m sure it’s better to experience repeated setbacks now, as a kid, and learn to just keep pushing and keep going, never giving up and never quitting despite adversities. For the kid that wins every time and always gets what he wants….life will probably eventually hand him a rude awakening when things inevitably don’t go his way some day. Down the road, I’ll probably be glad my kids went through these ups and downs and came out stronger.

Besides, when he does meet his goals- it will taste THAT MUCH SWEETER! 🙂

I heard a quote on a podcast yesterday that seemed fitting:

“Slow progress sticks.”

I liked that. Slow and steady wins the race. Just keep swimming… 😉

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful that I decided to go grocery shopping on Friday night BEFORE leaving town for the weekend. It was awesome to come home to a fully stocked kitchen.