Swimming In My Own Lane: A Memoir

TABLE OF CONTENTS

3  A QUICK NOTE

4  Introduction

16  My Youth: Early Days

17  Baltimore

21  Ohio

30  Getting Ready for College

37  Freshman Year

115  Philadelphia: The Early Days

118  Sophomore Year

170  Middle School

181  Junior Year

299  High School

323  The Rest of College

349  Epilogue

364   Music Appendix

373   Acknowledgements

A Quick Note

MUSIC HAS PLAYED A supporting role in many of the defining moments of my life. When I first started writing this memoir, it was my intention to start every chapter with lyrics from songs that were both from that time and still remind me of moments that occurred. However, there then became the issue of royalties if I used lyrics.  While I am not against artists getting paid for their creative work, I did not have the time or desire to hunt down every single company or band’s lawyer to figure out the process.  By my estimates this work would have been published sometime around the year 2322 had I attempted to figure out the royalty process. So, in lieu of lyrics I have created an appendix of song lists to accompany each chapter, plus an extra list or two to enjoy with the text.

Introduction

I WAS EXPLORING THE backyard with my son, walking along the stream that borders the yard and the wooded area of our property when I noticed him doing something peculiar for a little guy.  He was stopping and standing still.  I had my suspicions of what he was doing and why he was doing it. But how do you ask a small child questions about how he is processing the world around him, when it took me most of my life to understand how I process the world?

What did confirm my suspicions was my kids’ third trip to their weekly running club.  For the third week in a row my son refused to get into the group of kids who gathered pre-race and did the stretching exercises. It was loud, it was chaotic, it was unorganized.  Most kids were in the circle, rolling around in the grass and doing the jumps, arms circles and other randomly assigned activities by the volunteer running the race. My son stood right at my leg watching the stretching activities.  Want to get in there and stretch with the kids? I asked.  No, thanks he said.  I fist bumped him for his good manners, and I innately understood why he did not want to get in there. It was loud, it was chaotic, and he was content to be on the outside. It was a lot to process, all the craziness, even for me. But when race time was on, he ran his little heart out.

But as we were standing there, a nearby parent, simply said to my son, Aww, are you a little shy? Don’t want to stretch? to which he shook his head no. Then again, the person in a well-meaning way looks at me and says, Oh, he must be a little sensitive. This shook me to the core.  I had heard the terms sensitive and shy used about me all my life, and now to hear some random person say it about my child bothered me in ways that are hard to explain.

For my kids, the signs are there.  My son is hesitant in new situations; my daughter often wants quiet time after school.  But as they are still both little, I am going to wait to put any labels on them.  In case they were sensitive, I vowed to be ready.

Becoming a parent spurred a period of reflection and introspection on my part.  No one had warned me that being a parent would be like looking through a time warping mirror into my own past.  Just like no one tells you how many times you will get hit in the genitalia by your kids at random moments.  If my child was similar to me in terms of being truly sensitive, I became determined to better understand who I am. Through watching the interactions of my children with people and the world around them, as well as reading a good deal of research on what being truly sensitive means, I think I have finally built an understanding of myself.

When reflecting about my life and how to be as supportive and as knowledgeable a parent as possible, I looked back on the multitude of life experiences that I have had.  Mostly, I began to reflect on times of struggle and personal difficulty and tried to figure out what lessons I could learn to maybe someday help my kids. I did not have to reflect long or look far to find my greatest time of struggle. College. 

This is not to say that I did not struggle at other times in my life.  There were key periods of my life prior to college that might have foreshadowed future difficulties. It was in college that everything came to a head.

I struggled in almost every aspect of my life; academics, athletics, intrapersonal issues and with interpersonal relationships.  The whole gamut.  I developed resentment at my own sensitivity, and thus resentment of myself and likely had brushes with depression from time to time. I suffered from traumatic experiences.  I struggled as a person with empathy in what was an empathy free environment. None of these things I expected when walking onto campus for the first time. I left college with a complicated personal legacy that I only recently even attempted to understand.  In the process of finally unburying those memories, processing the trauma, and thinking about what advice I could someday give my kids from my own experiences, I started writing.  And thus, this memoir was born.

So why did I struggle? It seems that culturally college has become this celebrated time period of no consequence or expectation free behavior during the transition from youth to adulthood.  Most conversations about college are often about how it was someone’s greatest time of their life, and how they would do it all over again if they could.  My responses are different, and in the story, I will tell you why.  But, as I reflected I kept going back to that question of why I struggled.  Why did I bury so much stuff, and not talk about it in general conversations about college afterwards?  Why is the subject matter of the nightmares that I have, more than a decade and a half removed from being an undergraduate, only about college? 

In my twenties, I would have solely blamed the people that were around me.  And some of that blame is well placed. But as I have hit my later thirties, I have also come to understand that this legacy of college is more complex. It also includes who I am and how I am wired.  In short, my struggles came about partly because of being sensitive.

Now, and with well researched confidence, I understand that I am an introverted highly sensitive person. That sounds like a lot, but it simply describes how I interact with people, and with the world around me.  What I know now, is that being introverted, and being a highly sensitive person (HSP) did set me up for struggle in college.  And struggle I did. 

While I have never formally taken a Myers Briggs test to determine my specific personality type, I know that I am introverted, and not just because my wife has lovingly told me so on occasion.  I find that I draw strength and energy from a place within, not from others like an extrovert.  I enjoy occasional alone time, have a vivid interior world and may from time to time find the social world draining or overwhelming.  I recharge during downtime.  The list can go on and on, but it is all there. 

Introversion and all the ways that it manifests itself has become kind of a popular item in human interest sections of the news and popular literature.  Just google introversion, and you get thousands of articles with similar titles, 10 Signs That You Are an Introvert, or How to Be Effective at Work as an Introvert, or Ten Comics That Perfectly Summarize Being an Introvert.  It is a commonly accepted disposition.  Being highly sensitive, maybe not so much.

In Western Society, and more specifically in American Society, for males, being sensitive is still regarded as a weakness. That being sensitive makes you less of a man.  That if I were to say that I am a highly sensitive person, the assumption is that I should be sitting in a field writing poetry and crying about a butterfly that lost its wings while dressed like Oscar Wilde.  It could not be farther from the truth. I and many other men that I know, would all identify as sensitive, proudly, and there is no weakness there.  Sensitivity is a strength.

This sensitivity as a weakness idea, comes from the prevailing American concept of what it is to be masculine.  A male should be tough, bereft of the burden of emotion, able to act without having to think, able to take the pain and move on without complaint.  I envision the Clint Eastwood Western film type character as an archetype of this cult of American masculinity.  Give me my beer, and let me watch football, and if you want to talk about your feelings go talk to your Mother, or Crying is for girls, would fit into this male stereotype as well. Today, it seems American society is finally reconsidering this idea of masculinity, as the concept of how to act masculine has become toxic. Sensitivity blurs the stereotypical lines of masculine and feminine and this is one reason why sensitivity in men is still seen as a weakness. I never bought into the defined ideas of masculinity and femininity as who I am and how I operate do not match up.  It is also probably why, when all 64, 220 athletic built pounds of me tells someone that I am sensitive, I often get C’mon, but you’re tough! as a response.

What then, does it truly mean to be sensitive? As I pondered and researched this question for myself, the final answer I could boil it down to, was that sensitive people experience the world differently. We are genetically wired to experience more of the subtleties of the world around us and will process more of that information from our senses than the majority of the population.  Ultimately, the world around us affects us more whether it be in how we take in the information via our senses or how we process that information. The ability to take in more of the information in a setting, coupled with a deeper processing of that information, can often be seen as shyness or hesitancy to walk right into a situation that is new.

Someone who is sensitive often must stop, process and think about what they are walking into as they are wired to take in way more information about the setting than the average person. This is not to be confused with anything that can be found on the autism spectrum, as autism is a developmental disorder that can seriously affect a person’s ability to communicate or worse. Being highly sensitive is not even labeled a disorder as up to 40 percent of the population would meet the criteria. This was the simple explanation; I would learn that sensitivity is much more complex.

To best explain the complexities of sensitivity, I would like to use the DOES acronym[1]. This was pioneered by Dr. Elaine Aron, through her research on highly sensitive people, which is the correct psychological term to use when talking about sensitivity. The D stands for depth of processing, acknowledging that an HSP (highly sensitive person) processes more of the world around them through their senses and intuition. O stands for the overstimulation that many people with HSP, including myself from time to time, may deal with as the world can present too much information and can often leave one wanting to retreat from the world, or be hesitant to engage with it.  E stands for the emotional reactivity that an HSP can have to the world around them. Specific examples can be artwork such as paintings or music, an overly sappy commercial or witnessing an event that can evoke emotion like an accident or the birth of a child.  E can also be used for empathy and the empathic response that many people can have. Often, many people who identify as HSPs have told of having been able to feel the mood of rooms they have gone into or been affected by the feelings and moods of others. Finally, S represents an ability to sense subtleties, whether this be related to the five senses, such as finding a hint of vanilla in a cup of tea, or the subtleness of someone else’s emotions. This is not to say that highly sensitive people are super humans in regards to their five senses; they instead use more brainpower to process the information that comes from those senses.

Of the DOES terms, it has been the emotional reactivity, empathy, and subtleties that have caused the most struggle for me throughout my life. These are the items that I worry most about for my kids, as they progress through life.  It is here that I feel the idea of being a sensitive person truly dwells. I have found that my life has been defined by how I have reacted emotionally to events, stimuli such as art or music, and people. Often those reactions were either more or less intense than the expectation.  Further, the lingering effects of these reactions seem to last much longer. In the short term, I find it very difficult to watch scary movies, or any movie that has some sort of anxiety inducing scene. In the long run, I have held grudges for years, despite my best attempts to use rational thought to conquer them. Emotionally I seemed to react faster to people, or to people that I have not seen in some time, and to judge perhaps too quickly a peer or new acquaintance. I also have, as part of being highly sensitive, an enhanced empathy, which makes the moods of people around more impactful on me as they play a bigger part in my own emotionality. Because of this enhanced emotionality, I am more self-conscious of myself in all situations, which can again lead me to seem shy or even awkward. Further, perhaps because of my sensitivity, I have always been comfortable with being honest.  Many people struggle with saying how they feel, and I guess for me, knowing exactly how I feel, and often being able to gauge how others feel, I have found that honesty in most situations has always worked well and become something that I am known for.  Comfort with honesty is also a hallmark of being sensitive.

A second struggle of being highly sensitive for me, has been body awareness.  My body often reports back too much information regarding how it feels.  Often it was difficult for me as an athlete, and now as my body falls apart due to age and the wear and tear I have put on it, to overcome all of the feelings sent back from sore muscles after a workout, or a wonky back in the morning.  In my youth, I often saw this as a challenge in the mind over matter battle, but it made training and racing difficult when I swam.

Alcohol and its effects also can be difficult because of this high body sensitivity, as I often become acutely aware of the alcohol in my system and how I feel.  Sometimes I wish I could just have two glasses of wine and just feel fine, but that is not the case.  Also, I am somewhat of a nightmare for doctors.  As I grow older, the wear and tear I put on my body has begun to manifest itself in injuries like a degenerating disc, or cranky shoulders.  More often I have to describe how, where and to what extent an injury hurts before it can be seen on an MRI or X-Ray, to help in diagnosis.  And finding the right type of medicine that does not give me weird side effects like an erratic heartbeat, is yet another challenge. 

Throughout my life, this sensitivity has been both a blessing and a curse. It has been a struggle at times in my life, and even now there are times when the world can feel somewhat overwhelming and I feel the need to retreat from it. I know that there have been times in my life that who I was and how I am wired have played major roles in my actions and decisions, some good and some bad. I also have learned now in adulthood how to use the many positives to make my interactions with the world fuller and more exciting. I feel I have always experienced more of the world, heard things that others cannot hear, tasted the subtlest of flavors, smelled things that maybe others could not, and as I age, I appreciate this gift more and more. It was a struggle in my youth but it has come in handy in many situations, especially the increased emotionality and empathy.

This is not to say that having enhanced empathy has been easy.  Often it has been very difficult for me to say something negative to someone as I know both how I feel and how they will feel.  Perhaps that is why breakups in past relationships occurred way past when they should have, or having to deliver critical evaluations of a person were so difficult.  I have never been comfortable in a situation where someone was being picked on or teased, and I always find myself routing for an underdog. However, when teased or bullied, I never internalized what they said.  It was more a what is their problem? kind of reaction for me. In my youth I was self-conscious, absolutely, but oddly never from what someone else said to me.  In these situations of empathetic awareness, I found that earlier in my life I struggled with my words and expressing myself, though as I have aged and understand my feelings better I can use them to counsel and give well-meaning advice.

Throughout my life my emotional reactions to events have been greater and more nuanced than others. Music, even to this day, can still affect my emotions in amazing ways.  I can lose myself in a song, or use a song to change my mood relatively quickly. And yes, I love singing out loud in the car.  Having had a chance to travel to some of the greatest art museums in the world, and experiencing the artworks in them on so many different levels has invoked incredibly different and sometimes new feelings. The Pieta at the Vatican literally brought me to tears, as it was such a beautiful depiction of emotion and it affected me so intensely. Extending beyond intrapersonal feelings, interpersonal feelings also are much more intense and the feelings that I and other HSPs get from relationships can be more intense, but also more nuanced, fulfilling and comforting. There is a downside to falling out of love, which I will describe, but today the presence and comfort that I get from my wife, has a profound impact on me.  Lastly, as with most sensitive people, my inner world is unbelievably complex as daydreaming is a big part of my life, and my dreams at night can leave me in lasting funks or set the stage for an amazing day.

As I have gotten older, and understood my sensitivity better, I find that I often go out into the world seeking experiences that engage my senses to the fullest.  From my youth, I found that the beach was one of these places.  The sound of the ocean, the smell of the salt, the feel of the sand, the view of the water, all engage me on every level.  Even today I prefer to go to a beach to relax but at the same time engage all my senses.  In addition, as I have aged, I enjoy the subtleties of simply everyday things, like a new flavor in a home cooked meal that my wife and I tried, or simply a hint of something like blackberry in a glass of red wine.  It is these experiences that make me feel alive and that I find have made me feel that being sensitive is more and more a gift for me to use to experience life.

Now before you start saying to yourself, This guy is arguing that being sensitive is like having a super power, I want you to understand that being sensitive is more like being a super noticer.  Or better yet, I am overly aware.  I notice almost everything around me with my senses and my empathy when I choose to open up and take in all of that input.  I have learned as I have aged, how to ignore or shut down much of this input to my senses, or even to not be empathetic, and this is a big part of my story and journey.  But, for me at least, this ability to notice more, process more and feel more has defined my life.

How did this set me up to struggle in college? Simply put, it was overwhelming.  In college I had to wage an interior battle with myself, over my sensitivity and my introversion.  At the same time, I was stuck in a misogynistic bro-culture on the swim team as well as dealing with the exploitative nature of Division I sports.  Trying to find balance internally all the while dealing with incredibly overwhelming external issues was extremely stressful. I believe that being wired to be a caring person in an environment that was free of care for how people used each other or behaved set me up for struggle. Events such as being hazed, failing classes, falling in and out of love, struggling to find interior balance, and witnessing a sexual assault, all affected me in ways that have stuck with me for years.

Essentially, college is when I had to learn about myself, had to learn how to survive with this double whammy of introversion and being highly sensitive.  I made it, barely, and through the catharsis of writing this memoir, seem to have finally put a definition on its legacy.  It was the crucible, out of which, came the foundation for my understanding of who I am.

In writing this memoir, I also came to empathize with others like myself, knowing that college is stacked against introverts and sensitive people.  For me it was so very difficult to establish my safe spaces, places where I could recharge and re-center myself.  College is a non-stop, overwhelming rollercoaster of everything, social, academic, extracurricular, that people like me can and will struggle with.  Hopefully in writing about some of my experiences, and mistakes, someone else will benefit from my them.  I do know that if my kids are even remotely the same as I am in terms of disposition, I may have to tell them a few of these stories and events to prepare them, to talk and empathize with them, to help college not be as overwhelming as it was to me. On a personal level, finally telling some of these stories has been incredibly cathartic.

A final note. I have changed the names of all involved in the story.  And speaking of change, the other characters in my story, like myself, have hopefully changed over the time intervening between the events of this memoir and today.  The characters reflect who they were then, which this story being college, was also a time of personal flux, transition, and immaturity for them as well. I know this because I have spoken with some of the people involved since college and in anticipation of this memoir.

My Youth: Early Days

SENSITIVE IS A LABEL that I have lived.  My whole life.  To get scientific about it, I was destined to be born a sensitive person, with genetics being as they are and having being born to parents who I would identify as sensitive.  However, genetics played an interesting trick, and gave me bright red hair upon birth.  Like fire-engine red bright.  So bright that people, mostly older women, often made a point of stopping what they were doing to walk over and tell me how red my hair is. For someone who was a shy, quiet kid, this attention was uncomfortable.

I had a great childhood.  My earliest memories are simple flashes of being with my family and feeling loved.  I have a loving and supporting family to this day, and I cannot think of any period of time where I felt neglected, unsafe or unloved. This is a tribute to my parents, who in raising a sensitive child never really pressed me too much, and always provided an environment of love and support.  I was truly blessed with family.

You the reader, may have already tuned out.  I know you are considering putting this memoir down already.  Where is the dog mauling? Why no story about falling down a well?  Who writes a memoir about being loved by his family?  I get it, but relax.  This memoir will have it all, minus the dog mauling or an untimely descent into a well. 

Baltimore

WHEN I HEARD STORIES of when I was little, it was hard not to draw parallels to some of the experiences that I have had with my own kids.  And for me, the signs were all there that I was a sensitive child.  But good luck trying to explain to a toddler that he is sensitive and how to better process the world around him. Luckily for me, I was in a loving home environment with two parents who were very engaged with me, and they pushed me just the right amount to let go of their legs and explore.  And thus, I slowly but surely, got out there and experienced the world.  But there were some bumps in the road.

My first 4th of July did not go so well apparently. I hated fireworks and loud noises in general.  When I was around age one or so, my parents took me to the 4th of July fireworks and by the third boom, I was so overwhelmed by the noise that they had to take me to the car.  I have seen this type of reaction from my own son, who will often tell me something is too loud.  For him, it is not that it was scary, but simply too loud.  This theme of noises and sounds that were too loud extended to my bedroom, where even in summer, I would ask to have the windows closed because of the noises from the crickets and the bugs.  It’s not that I do not like the sounds, it was that I could not stop hearing them. And don’t get me started about the time the cicadas came out when I was five.

Another story that my parents told me, that says it all about me being sensitive as a kid was of an early trip to the Outer Banks. When I was around one and a half, and by then mobile, my parents could just leave me in a beach chair, and they would go into the ocean to swim and I would sit there and watch them.  Despite being a toddler who would typically wander around, I sat there with my pair of Donald Duck shades on, and despite their best attempts at encouraging me to go into the water with them, I was content to sit and watch.  They would be out in the water, look back at me, wave, and sometimes I would wave back. I was happy as a clam to sit there, Donald Duck sunglasses on, and watch them swim.  I have seen the pictures of me from this vacation, and frankly, those were some badass Donald Duck sunglasses.  To this day, I can still sit at the beach, and just enjoy all of the sensory input as it comes to me. 

We were living outside of Baltimore at that time, and I still can remember some of those early trips to places like the National Aquarium, which at the time had a large group of seals or sea lions in an outside tank I can still remember the salt smell of the water. We made trips to other locales like the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum.  Generally, I was a shy and quiet kid, but I loved new experiences and new places.  My first memories of being in a pool were from this time, and I began my lifelong love of swimming. I can still distinctly remember hanging on the wall of the Catonsville Pool, doing a wall climb with my Dad, and just loving everything about being in a pool.

My entry into school was easy, as I started pre-school and would eventually attend kindergarten while living outside of Baltimore.  I apparently insisted on inviting my entire preschool class over for my birthday party, which my parents amazingly did.  My Mom said that I did not want to leave anyone out from my party.  I loved going to school, doing the crafts, learning about things like dinosaurs, and field trips. I had a few friends that I would go to play dates with and enjoyed running around and doing typical kid stuff.

It was in kindergarten, that perhaps the only mildly traumatic event of my youth occurred.  As I said earlier it was not falling in a well.  It was not even that time I was riding my Big Wheel, in sandals that I threw a fit about wearing, and dragged the top of my foot on the ground to slow down thus getting my first experience with road rash.  No, it was worse.  In kindergarten, during random vision screenings, it was determined that I needed to get glasses.

I remember sitting with the vision screener, and her holding a card with a capital letter E on it, and she would turn it this way and that and then ask me what direction it was pointing.  I could see on her face every time I got one wrong.  I began to have that sinking feeling of dread, knowing that things were not going well.  A few days later I was in the more formal setting of a doctor’s office and then shortly thereafter I was being asked if I like this pair of glasses or another.  Now, the early 1980s were not exactly the period of high fashion or of even reasonable fashion, and this and a need for a really strong prescription for my lenses, left me with a pair of glasses that were ginormous and hideous at the same time.  I hated them.  It seemed that every time I went to run around or play in them I would bump into something with them, and I despised the glasses.  It would get worse when I was diagnosed with a lazy eye and had to get surgery to correct it, followed by eight hours a day of wearing an eye patch to strengthen my eye.

I was already self-conscious about having red hair but now glasses! And for a period of time an eye patch?  Exhibit A on the red hair front would be the time I went to a Baltimore Orioles game with my parents, and as we were walking along the outfield in Memorial Stadium, an usher or attendant shouted Hey Red! at me and then tossed me a ball he had caught during batting practice.  This is a dream scenario for any kid, getting a baseball at a game, but I was so pissed off that he had called me red, that it took quite some time for my parents to console me and calm me down.  Luckily shortly after the game started Cal Ripken Jr hit a homerun and that put me back into the right mindset and I could move on.  The combination of the red hair, and now having glasses made me incredibly self-conscious in public spaces.  Oh, and did I mention I have always been one of if not the tallest in my class? 

After kindergarten, my family moved to Athens, Ohio.  My Dad, a professor had gotten a job at the local university, and my mom, a teacher, would also return to teaching during this time. My sister was born shortly before we moved, and our now family of five would move into what I thought was a mansion, on three and a half acres of land, most of which was wooded. My parents would say otherwise about the house, but it was a nice house.  I still cherish to this day the time we spent in Ohio as I think this is where I began an appreciation for being highly sensitive, though I did not understand what it was.  Ohio would also be where I first joined a swim team, an activity that would have a major effect on my future.  Lastly, Ohio was closer to many of my relatives who lived in Western Pennsylvania, and so it was also a time of many visits with relatives as well. 

Ohio

IN OHIO, I HAD THE backyard of dreams.  Much of the land my family had was wooded, and this is where I became an outdoors kid. In the summer, I loved to go explore amongst the trees, climb on stumps and build tree forts from the cavity left by a fallen tree with my brother.  Somedays I could just sit on the pine needles and listen to birdsong, and try to figure out where the bird was, or what species.  Other days I would run along the deer path that ran through much of the woods, listening to my heartbeat pound in my ears and imagining I was following the scents of different plants or animals.  It was around this time I read stories like Sign of the Beaver or My Side of the Mountain and I imagined having my own adventures like the main characters did in my own woods. 

Spending the time out in the woods allowed me to sort of hone my senses.  I would sit and listen to the sounds all around me, try to figure out what was making the noises I heard and then try to locate the noisemaker.  I would stop and smell the plants as I walked the deer path.  Flowers, trees, probably weeds, whatever I could just to build a memory of scent along with knowing what each plant looked like.  I would climb trees, especially ones that had fallen over and I would feel the different roughness of the barks, or watch the leaves move in the different daylights as I heard a gentle breeze susurrating through the trees. For me, the woods became a respite from a busy day at school, and an endless place of exploration and discovery.  I did not know it or understand it then, but today realize it was a place where I could center myself, to look both within and outward at the same time and enjoy the coming together of my imagination and the sensory world around me. While exploring the woods, it didn’t matter how red my hair was, or that I wore glasses, or was taller than others, it was a place of solitude and calm.  And often, I had my brother out there with me as we ran, climbed, built and pretended.  It was a magical place for me, and gave me a plethora of great memories. Whenever I go hiking, I am communing with that little kid in me exploring the woods, loving his surroundings.

Ohio is where my first memories of schooling begin.  The only thing I can remember prior to Ohio was that damn vision screening in kindergarten.  I attended first through fourth grade at the local elementary school, starting every day with a car sickness inducing ride through the rolling countryside of Southeast Ohio.  I loved almost everything about school.  Going to the library to get a new book to read, art class, gym, recess, making friends all made for exciting days at my elementary school.  During those days, my elementary school was creating a Land Lab, basically using the extra land that the school was on to create an area for outdoor based education.  I looked forward to the days of going out to try to find frogs or identify bird species as part of science class. I have always believed that a love of learning can either be nurtured or crushed in a young child during those early days at elementary school, and through the combination of supportive parents and my teachers, a lifelong love of learning was planted in me.

The social aspect of school was a little more difficult for me.  For starters, I was quiet.  Very quiet.  And this made unstructured time like recess difficult for me to go and participate in things.  I remember just standing watching the kids play basketball or semi-organized games of tag hoping that someone would pick me or incorporate me into the game.  I guess I did not have the confidence to just walk into the game and join.  I think I enjoyed myself most when the teachers would organize large games and there was no anxiety about how to get myself involved.  After my bus ride home, my Mom would often ask me how my day went, and this line of questioning often included the question of who I played with that day.  Sometimes I would not have an answer which probably concerned my parents.  I know that today I ask my kids the same question and get somewhat alarmed if their answer is no one. But, while it is hard to explain, for me, I was not lonely. I had my inner world, and the interactions that I had throughout the day in various social situations fulfilled me, whether I had worked in a small group or had talked with a teacher.

Eventually, I think it was in 3rd or 4th grade, I did have an answer to the daily question of who I played with at school.  His name was Hank.  He was a kid from my class, and at recess we played basketball, climbed at the playground and hit up the swings.  You know, just kids on the playground stuff.  He was a nice kid, and he was my bud at school.  I remember after answering Hank several times that happy for you look my parents had, as they had been worried that I was so quiet and potentially lonely and now I had a friend at school.

However, at teacher conferences my Mom was complimented on how nice I was to play with Hank.  You see, Hank was a selective mute, and a lot of the kids did not bother to try to interact with him. So, on one hand my Mom was happy that I had a friend at school and was interacting with another kid, but on the other was concerned that he did not talk.  When my Mom and I reminisce about my childhood, I still like to tease her about how she must have felt with that revelation.  From what I can remember, he was a nice kid, there was a lot of finger pointing from him to communicate, and do you really need to talk a whole lot to play basketball on a playground? Hank suffered from a serious stutter, and chose not to talk. Apparently because of me, Hank joined the Cub Scout Troop that I was in, which Hank’s parents saw as progress for him.  Hank may be the first person outside of family that I can remember having empathy for.

At about the same time, and out of concern for my shyness around other kids my parents signed me up for the local swim team. Well, first they signed me up for swim lessons at a neighbor’s house who gave lessons in their backyard pool.  That lasted a day as I had an aptitude for swimming, and shortly thereafter I joined the Athens Swim Club. Swimming would be a game changer for me. 

Well, not immediately.  I was not good at the beginning of my athletic career.  Now, I was not a hanging on the lane lines kid, but time wise, I was quite slow.  I have no idea why I was slow, but I was.  I actually thought I swam quite hard in practice, partly because I was scared quite a bit of the time and would sprint parts of the practice, even if I was supposed to swim slowly.  To explain, the pool that our team swam in was a massive long course 50-meter Olympic size pool.  And the deep end, was over twenty feet deep as it had at least a 5-meter platform for diving.  Worse, that massive deep end, had this big black window, which was a viewing area to watch the underwater entries of the divers. However, for me, an 8 and under swimmer, with too vivid an imagination, that was where they kept either the sharks or the piranhas, or worse, both, which could at any moment be released to devour the swimmers in the pool.  Thus, I sprinted past the black window every time I swam past it. I have always wondered if the coaches said amongst themselves, What is the deal with that kid who randomly sprints?  Fear does not drop swimming times, and it would be sometime until I either figured out my coordination or fixed my strokes to get faster, but I loved everything about swimming. Except