On deck

What's better than a swim meet on a Saturday in December? How about two swim meets? It's Saturday morning and I am working at the check-in table at the Potomac Valley Swimming Turkey Claus, a four-day swimming extravaganza at the University of Maryland. Never mind the insanity of kids missing a day or more of school just to compete in a swim meet. My son missed school yesterday but he swam in the winning medley relay, so I guess it was worth it. 

I thought that the check-in table would be a more fun place to work than the pool deck but having now seen the grass on both sides of the fence, I have to say it's not any greener over here. My son’s club is hosting the meet, and the University of Maryland is charging a lot of money for the use of the aquatic center, and the money has to come from somewhere, and "somewhere" means an admission charge for parents who already hand over a lot of money to the swimming industrial complex. It's not an easy sell, but I have to say that most of the parents are pretty understanding. And I can talk the rest of them around. I'm pretty good at talking people around. It's one of my special skills. 

After prelims this morning, we will make our way to the Kennedy Shriver Aquatic Center (KSAC to the initiated) for Rockville vs. Richard Montgomery, the first meet of the high school season. My youngest is a senior, so it is his and our last season of high school swimming. 

*****

It's 7:30 on Sunday morning and I'm back at the Eppley Recreation Center pool for the fourth and final day of Turkey Claus. It's a clear and cold early December day and I'm looking out the floor to ceiling windows on the far side of the pool. It’s a lovely view. Early winter morning sunlight is streaming through bare trees in the little wooded area just outside the pool. My older son goes to school here but I don't think I have ever noticed that the main campus at UMD is really a very pretty place. Well, parts of it are. Yesterday, I lost my car in the Terrapin Trail parking garage, which is very much NOT a pretty place. That garage is dead to me now. 

My son made finals in breaststroke last night and he finished fifth. He wasn't happy about missing the medals but 5th place out of almost 130 is pretty good and we'll take it. This morning will be low key. I'm not volunteering, he's swimming one event in which he will not make finals, and we should be out of here by 11. 

*****

We were actually out of there just after 10. I brought a book with me so that I'd have something to do during the twenty-plus heats of the two events that preceded my son’s sole event but I didn't end up reading for two reasons. One is that they added another medley relay event that included my son, and the other is that I was engrossed in the other races. I'm usually so busy at a swim meet that I forget that I really love to watch swimming. My son's club swept the last minute relay, winning first, second, and third place. He finished somewhere in the middle of the 100 freestyle pack and then we went to the College Park Diner where the boy ate an astonishing amount of breakfast. Swimmers can eat, I tell you what. 

And that was Turkey Claus. There’s nothing but easy-peasy high school swimming until January. 

*****

It’s Wednesday night now, and I’m writing because I write every day, and because it’s just as good a way as any other to avoid cooking dinner. Dinner isn’t even hard. I know what I’m going to make and the ingredients are sitting right there. I’ll get right to it just as soon as I finish cleaning out my already pretty clean desk drawers. 

This is how I act when I’m out of sorts, and I’m out of sorts. Seasonal affective disorder is no joke, and the darkness and cold are combining with overwork and exhaustion and inability to see the light at the end of the busy-all-the-time tunnel. I wish I could sleep. Three months should do it. I’ll sleep until the middle of March and when I wake up there will be daylight until 7 or so. 

But of course, then I’ll miss Christmas, not to mention this last high school swim season. And the house will be a mess, too. They’re all pretty neat, my family, but they’re not compulsive. They’ll leave the folded laundry on top of the dryer for a week. They won’t vacuum unless there’s actual visible dirt. They won’t even think about the refrigerator shelves. And the bathroom? No, this won’t work. I’m going to have to wake up every day, at least for a few hours, or the whole operation will fall to pieces. Plus I have a job. There’s always a flaw in the plan. There’s always some damn detail. 

*****

It’s Thursday now, and I’m in a much better frame of mind. I was out of sorts yesterday, but I replenished my stock of sorts, and things are looking up. Yesterday wasn’t rock bottom, but it wasn’t far from rock bottom and the slope seemed slippery. I do hate those days. I hate feeling sad and I hate feeling sad about being sad because what on earth do I have to be sad about? I don’t lack for a single thing. How dare I? 

I’d never tell another depressed person to snap out of it. I’d never even think it. But that’s what I tell myself. And sometimes it actually works. It worked yesterday. A few hours sleep, a little pep talk (to myself), and “Here Comes the Sun” (the Richie Havens recording), and I’m right as rain, pretty much. 

“Here Comes the Sun” works every time. 

Tomorrow is Friday and I’ll work from home, and then we’ll go watch the Capitals play the Seattle Kraken. On Saturday, I’ll be on the deck with my clipboard for Rockville vs. Einstein. And really, what’s better than a swim meet on a Saturday in December?