Crazy swim parents

Where am I now? Well, at swim practice of course. I know that doesn't sound unreasonable, because we parents of this generation drag and drive our children to practices nearly every day, even on Sundays, previously a sacred family day. However, to help the reader understand the insanity of this, let me explain some details around tonight's extraordinary craziness:

I live in suburban Washington, D.C., about thirty miles outside of the city, in Virginia. We just got our second largest snowfall in twenty-four hours on record. My neighbors and I measured over thirty inches. It was blizzard conditions, so it may well have been slightly more than that. In addition, to the snow fall, the fore-mentioned blizzard included seventy-mile-an-hour winds. That means those thirty inches of powdery snow created enormous drifts. Drifts larger than me. I am six-two. So, tall.

If anyone has experienced even an inch of snow in Virginia, you know we don't know how to drive, and do not choose to drive, in snow. At all. Ever. So, I do not anticipate going near our school until February. Yet, my husband convinced me to bring Theo to swim practice.

I arrogantly thought, that as a Minnesota-raised girl, I would be the only one brave enough to make it to the insanely scheduled practice. I am pretty sure that the facility also only expected one or two other mentally challenged parents to show up, because they seem to have forgotten to plow eighty percent of the parking lot.

The not-so-plowed parking lot at George Mason University

Yet, when I showed up, I was not the only ridiculous swim-parent to show up. The lot (what was plowed that is) was completely full. I parked my little orange jeep halfway up a pile of snow . I dragged my son and his buddy, both who were less-than-thrilled for practice and exhausted from an entire day spent playing in the snow. The boys talked about how awesome it would be if they were the only two swimmers to show up.

As we walked into the Freedom Center on the George Mason campus, wecould look through the windows into the pool area. All swim lanes were FULL of little swimmers. Did I mention my son is twelve, his buddy eleven. Yep, they are not trying out for the Olympics yet.

Swimmers working out at the Freedom Center at George Mason University post-blizzard 2016

So, yes, we are all crazy parents, making sure our little swimmers get all the practices they can before the big meet this weekend. I promise you, in my old age I will look back at today and laugh at the "silliness of the young."

I'm not young anymore?

I remember the first day I walked through the halls of the high school I now work in. It was over seven years ago, and at the time I was already in my mid-thirties. As I walked through the hallways, on my way to substitute teach for the first time, I wondered if the kids would realize I was a teacher and not a student. Yep, I thought that for a split second.

This was what I looked like at age 18

And this is the reality now, more than 25 years later.

Just like a lightening bolt it hit me, I wasn't young anymore. The problem was that I could so clearly remember what it felt like to be a teenager, to walk through the halls of Mounds View High School in New Brighton, Minnesota. It wasn't just the fact that I had little crows feet along my eyes, or that every year I seemed to injure yet a new piece of my anatomy attempting sports that were easy to do in my teens. It wasn't the fact that it took only five seconds to consume a 3000 calorie meal, and about two months to work that meal off. It went far deeper than that.

Walking through those halls, I could taste the freshness of the naivete of youth. I remember believing that my generation was the smartest, strongest and most powerful one yet. I was confident that I knew more than my parents or aunts and uncles. That my generation would change the world, make it a better place and show our silly parents and elders what it really was like to be a thoughtful, considerate and intelligent generation... Generation X.

Now I am not only an adult, but a middle-aged adult, I am that "stupid" parent, and my generation has done little to nothing to change the landscape of this earth. Politicians are still corrupt, murder and rape occur at alarming rates, wars continue to erupt around the world, there is still a threat of nuclear war, the environment is a mess, girls are still too skinny, and we still hide our anxiety in a bottle of alcohol or drugs.

It was this realization that truly broke my heart. I missed that naivete, the belief in myself and my generation that anything was truly possible. Yet, I saw this same attitude in the students whose faces I passed in the hallway. It was that day that I most wanted to become a full-time teacher and have the opportunity to help these kids figure out who they were, who they could become, and  what they could accomplish.