Hindsight

I recently stumbled on a picture I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was taken during Mary Clare’s first swim meet when she was only five years old. In the photo, I am crouched down next to her. She is wearing her black and red team swimsuit and matching latex cap. Her tongue is sticking out and tinted blue. We both look relaxed and happy.  

Hindsight is funny. It has a way of changing our view completely. In hindsight, we notice things we never would have noticed at the time. Details both large and small. Important and inconsequential. In hindsight, we acknowledge that we might have made different choices.  

What I notice now in this photograph, after having completed nearly 10 years of summer swim team with my two children, leaves me laughing and rolling my eyes at my younger self. Looking at this photo, I immediately see that I am completely overdressed for the occasion. My sleeveless pink collared shirt is a perfect match to my bright floral capris. My hair is clean and put together. I am wearing makeup and my antiperspirant is still working. I would learn quickly that summer that swim team life is completely the opposite of cute or glamorous. It doesn’t look like this photo at all. It is hours and hours of volunteering on a hot, humid and crowded cement block. It is weekday evenings waiting out thunderstorms from your car. It is loud kids zipping around, high on neon-colored candy fed to them by eager teenage coaches when your child places first in their heat. It is cold cheeseburgers and warm bottled water. It is screaming at your child from the other side of the pool or hunting for them when the announcer calls their name over the PA system. It is a long drive home late at night -- and waking up to learn your child was disqualified in an event because only one hand touched the wall during breaststroke. 

I’m glad I didn’t have hindsight back then. I’m glad no one filled me in and that I didn’t have any idea what I was getting into when we signed Mary Clare up that first year. I never would have agreed to it. I would have come up with a million reasons why I couldn’t volunteer, why my child needed to go to bed on time, why candy for dinner is not an acceptable meal substitute. I wouldn’t have done summer swim team, and my child wouldn’t have done it — and not signing up would have been a huge mistake. 

That experience, summer after summer, offered me and my child new friendships and new skills. Those summers filled my heart with pride as I watched her try her very best. I learned how loudly I could scream and cheer. I learned how to help her accept disappointment and frustration. I tried to be more patient when the 7th pair of goggles disappeared — again. I learned that being a hot mess (literally) is not so bad when you are surrounded by a hundred other parents who are melting alongside you. And that when I am really, really hungry a cold hamburger tastes pretty damn good. 

And I learned that peeling your child out of their swimsuit, kissing their chlorinated head and tucking them under covers in the dark on those summer nights are memories that she may not remember, but I will never forget.

Happy Birthday, Mary Clare. Love, Mom.