Confession: When I was in sixth grade, I was on a swim team. I came in dead last in every meet. I mean super dead last. Like everyone else was wrapped in towels, the next group was waiting to start, and I still had 20 meters to go. 20 meters of the 50 meter race.
The truth is that I knew from the start that I couldn't win. I practiced with kids who were 3-4 years younger than I was. I practiced twice a week instead of three times, because Friday afternoons ran into Shabbat. I was only at two meets the whole year, because all the others were on Shabbat. I had no chance of winning.
But I did get a pretty decent crawl (freestyle) stroke, and the endurance to swim a km, even when my arms were a lot shorter than they are now.
Later, in college, I took a swimming course as my required physical education course. Most of the girls (religious college, not sure if all sports were separate, but swimming was) were beginners, so I was considered one of the stronger swimmers in the class. Except my breast stroke wasn't good. So I had to learn it again, and refine my crawl, and discover that my butterfly was still not where it should be.
And then I entered the real world, and nobody cares. I swim well enough to keep my kids safe in a swimming pool or a well life-guarded beach. I swim well enough that when I get in the pool to exercise, I feel good about it. Beyond that, it doesn't matter.
When I talk about my year on a swim team, I always say, with a bit of a laugh - "I was on a swim team. I was terrible - came in dead last in every race, but I kept going!"
Being the worst is ok. In retrospect, losing makes a better story than winning.
