Disappointment Is Inevitable

The boys’ high school swim season in Connecticut is about four months long.

And the way a high school swim season works is you train your ass off for the majority of the season. For like a hundred days, you bust your butt in the pool.

You get the shit kicked out of you six days a week.

You do this for about 3 1/2 months.

During that time, you compete in dual meets against other teams. You are exhausted and broken down, and you typically don’t swim many best times because your body is taking such a beating.

But you are okay with it, because you know that the reward for all your hard work is coming.

About 2 weeks before the championship meet — the meet you spend all season working toward — you start tapering.

A taper is literally what is says.

You gradually taper off on the amount yards you swim and the intensity at which you train for about two weeks until the day before the meet when you really don’t do much more than an extended warm up for practice.

Taper time is the most glorious time of the season for a swimmer. YOU LIVE FOR THE TAPER.

Your body recovers, you are rested, and you have more energy than you know what to do with.

And you enter your championship meet knowing you are going to swim faster than you ever have before.

It’s when records are broken (and set).

It’s when All-State and All-American times are posted.

It’s when you are reminded of why you pushed yourself so hard day in and day out for the last 100+ days.

Number 3, a freshman in high school, is three days away from his first state championship meet.

Three days from reaping the benefits of all his hard work.

But this year it’s not happening.

Yesterday the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference cancelled the state championships for all winter sports.

This includes boys’ high school swimming.

And this means Number 3 and his teammates will not be able to swim in their championship meet.

They are understandably disappointed. And devastated.

Especially the seniors. Because for many of them, this was their final meet not only of the season, but of their careers.

Number 3 isn’t the only one who’s disappointed, though.

Number 4 and Number 5 had their championship meet this weekend also.

Number 4 qualified very easily, but Number 5 worked her butt off and qualified in 11 events this year.

And that meet was also cancelled.

Number 5 is especially crushed.

I feel awful for them. It’s truly heartbreaking.

But sometimes life is heartbreaking.

Sometimes life really fucking blows.

And this is where we have two options.

We get to model how to respond and to react to less than desirable circumstances.

We can scream and yell and swear and lose our shit repeatedly. We can complain. We can constantly talk about how unfair it is. We can tell everyone we know about how horribly the issues are being handled.

We can throw big, grown up temper tantrums.

Or, we can empathize with our kids and share their disappointment.

And then we can help them navigate a shitty situation in a healthy way.

Because lots more shitty situations are gonna come down the pipe for our kids.

Ultimately, this is an opportunity for growth.

And there’s nothing you can do about it. 

Not about the circumstance.

Sometimes circumstances are out of your control.

But your reaction to them never is.

That is the one thing you always have control over.

And it’s our job as parents to help our kids figure out how to navigate this stuff without imploding.

Sometimes life sucks.

This is one of those times.

There will be more meets for my kids.

Life will go on.

It’s not the Olympics. (And when those were cancelled for US athletes in the 80’s, they all survived, too).

Major disappointment is a part of life.

We can model how to throw a big fit.

Or we can look at a less than desirable solution as an opportunity to our kids navigate these types of situations in a healthy way.

And that’s my plan.