I’ve now been to three Olympic Trials meets as an athlete and two as a spectator. The first two, I only noticed the people who made the team– my heroes. The third I left heartbroken and – as life goes – I started noticing the heartbreaks in every finals heat. Two make the Olympics, six …
I remember saying in high school that I loved “deep talks”. Not to slight 15 to 18-year-olds but I sometimes wonder what my teenage definition of a deep talk was. I had far more social interactions in high school and college than I do now, so maybe I did get into subjects with more emotional …
The Merriam-Webster definition of “joy” is “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” I’ve been pondering the idea of joy a lot lately because I feel like much of it was sucked out of me when my mom passed away in February. I’d always considered myself involuntarily joyful. I’ve had little to not rejoice about …
I had just finished filling up my tires at QT yesterday when a woman came up and tapped on my car window. Her cheeks were sunken, her teeth were rotting and her body was wasting away. She asked if she could have some money to go buy a sandwich. This woman looked like she needed …
Do you remember your first aspiration? I’m not sure if I came by goal-setting naturally…I actually think swimming eventually drilled it into my thick skull. But I remember wanting to win at an early age. Anything really. I wanted to go to the Olympics, though I had no idea what that meant. I wanted to …
Do you ever feel like you’re a slightly different person every day? Some days, I like the changes I feel. I’ll spring out of bed ready to tackle my to-do list with fervor. I’m confident in my abilities, my goals, my hair… Other days, I feel like I never get my eyelids fully opened and …
It’s a gorgeous day in Tucson. I’m seated on a coffeeshop patio in the foothills and it’s a blustery 76 degrees. I should be basking in the glory of this weather, landscape, pumpkin spice coffee, but instead my chest is tight with guilt. Many of us can’t take a full breath because of stress, but …
I have a shirt that says, “focus on the good”. I ordered it from Unlock Hope years ago. I always laugh at myself when I accidentally wear it on a travel day or a day I know is going to be especially long. Because, well, those are the days I don’t naturally “focus on the good”. …
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” Jimmy Dugan aka Tom Hanks said that in “A League of Their Own”. It’s been one of my motivational mantras since my high school swimming days, but gosh, it applies to more than sports. As …