The other side of the pool

Tonight was our interhouse swimming gala at school. When I was in high school the interhouse swimming gala was one of the worst days of my year. Every year. I approached these days with knots in my stomach. There were never enough actual swimmers to compete in every race for the house and my best friend and I spent our time sitting way in the back trying to blend into the bench. We never quite learned how to do this. Even if our names weren’t on the list the day before you could be certain that someone would be absent or conveniently forget their costume or suddenly develop some strange, deadly disease that was passed through water, and we would be called on by some nasty, clip-board-bearing prefect to fill in. Of course, we were too much of a pair of goody-two-shoes (or just simply too terrified to dream of breaking any rules) to have forgotten our own costumes and no one would tell us where to pick up those deadly diseases the night before. So we swam, every year. Sarah was better than I was. Sometimes she came third or fourth! I came sixth or seventh depending on whether there were six or seven swimmers. Humiliating. If I we had a perseverance cup, I would have got it. But no, there wasn’t even a perseverance cup to hope for in the end. Just humiliation. Year after year. And, to top it off, our school was co-ed. Swimming galas are already a bad idea but having them at a co-ed school is just cruel and unusual punishment. Just at that time when you are self-conscious about absolutely everything about yourself they make you get in a costume and try to swim in front of boys and all the other girls who are way prettier and way more popular that you. And everyone, every single person—parent, student, teacher—at Les Brown pool is watching you. Contrary to what you would assume, they do not watch the person coming first, or second, or third, they don’t even watch their daughter or their sister or their girlfriend. No, , no, they watch you. Like hawks watching a poor, little, defenseless baby rabbit. You can tell galas were traumatic moments in my life.

But now – oh the happiness – I am a teacher. Ha! Now I sit on the other side of the pool. I give out the little disk with the number 3 on it. I get wet only when a dive fails to be executed quite right. I drink tea and chat to colleagues about which swimmers are their favourite students. I clap for the girl who wins the perseverance cup. Next year I’m going to get the number 6 disk. Those are my people.

Oh, it is good to be here, on the other side.