“Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else.” –Richard Siken

Can you imagine your house shaking from the weight of years of yelling? You turn the volume up in your headphones as you try to drown out another fight. Your little sister crawls into bed with you. Something shatters, but you still manage to keep holding yourself together.

When I was twelve, my parents divorced. When I was thirteen I wanted to kill myself. School was only ever “fine.” I laughed with my friends and cried in the shower. All my mother could talk about was how horrible my father was, and the other way around. I am seventeen, and this hasn’t really stopped. There was no escape for me. When I was thirteen, I joined the high school swim team.

Can you imagine finding a place perfectly solitary, yet somehow connected? You dive off the blocks into the cool water, and as you take that first breath of air, you can feel your soul heal.

When I swim, I forget everything: the divorce, the stress, the madness that follows me like a raincloud. When I ride my bike to swim practice at 6am, and the November air steals the breath out of my lungs, and my hands are frozen, and my swim bag is an anchor tying me to the pavement, I forget. When I stayed up until midnight to write a paper and I can barely open my eyes, I forget. When I feel like quitting, I forget. I forget how good it feels to forget.

Can you imagine a place with no worries? You relax as the air and water move around you. Everything is in harmony and you smile like an idiot. This is what it is to be connected. This is what it is to be at peace. This is home.

When I was sixteen I was put on medicine for depression and anxiety. School gets to be too much. Life gets to be too much. Everything gets to be too much. But even through the 6 a.m. practices, the week of land exercises, and never getting to do my hair, swimming will never be too much.