I might really be crazy. I'm leaving in twenty minutes for the Hartford airport for Indianapolis to swim at Senior Nationals. Tonight, I'll watch the boys swim their 400 free relay, scream them on to victory, and then I have one race on Wednesday. Whether or not I stay on after that, I'm not sure yet. But, at least I am on for Wednesday. Honestly, I've had to say it out loud five times now—once to Coach, once to Mom and Dad, once to Parker (and the boys, he put me on speakerphone), once to Logan, and then once to Kristy—and it still sounds insane. I could have an allergy attack at any minute, I'm tapering for Juniors which is next week, and, oh yeah, I wanted to stay here and hang out with my friends.

But this is what I need. It's not who I am, but it's what I do. And it makes me feel good, to lose myself in the water. My body is betraying me in so many ways, but when I swim, I'm in control.

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Maybe I'm jinxing it, but today is Day Four of No Allergy Problems. If they are allergy problems. ( Read more... )

Tonight is the first time I'll have seen anyone in nearly a month. I haven't talked to anyone in almost a week, either. I feel...I have so many words that I want to put down here, but I can't. I can't find them. Maybe I used them all up with Mom and Dad. Maybe I used them all with Isaac or with my coach. But I have none right now for this.

Maybe I used them all up on what's been happening lately. Maybe they are all caught under the sick stabbing in my stomach. Maybe they are smothered under the red rash on my body or behind the tight, choked feeling that's always in my throat. That feeling that took over...that allergy attack...three of them in two weeks...maybe that's where my words are. I don't know. I feel...empty. Where are my words?

There's an open water exhibition in Santa Catarina, the surfing capitol of Brazil that we're off to, in about five minutes from now—the moment we get off the plane, off to the ocean. I've been looking forward to this one…the four of us are flying down together for two days. Swim for two hours, surf for two days? Yeah, I can do that.

I need some time away. From everything. Even my journal, I just need time to lose myself for a while.

The sun is going down behind the mountains, like it did in Colorado. Like it doesn't do at home. As if Rio de Janeiro was just another place—not home. But where I belong right now, I guess.

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I'm nervous. I'm excited. I'm uncertain, I'm steady, I'm scared. I'm ready.

We're almost ready for bed, since the alarm clock is set for four in the morning. I've got my bags packed. I've got my FastSkin and my cap and my goggles in my shoulder bag, just in case everything else gets lost. Because that's why I'm going. But I will, I have to make this trip more than that. If it takes all I have, I will go back home different than the girl who left--a new girl who knows that not everything is a race. There is no end point, there is no expiration point. Dr. Rosana says I still live as though I'm not sure how many days I have left. I live like everything will be taken away.

Do I? I don't know. But I do know: I am ready to try something new, with people who don't know me and with the two people who love me best. I have freedom to try. And see how it sticks. I'm ready.

Oh, Amanda. It's as if her pelvis is permanently set to "thrust."

Let me back up. It's not like I hunted down the nude photos of Amanda Beard. Of course I had heard about them--who in the swimming world hadn't? A seven-time Olympic medalist--four of them gold--and one of the most visible faces in the sport poses for Playboy? Of course I had heard, and thanks to the ESPN profile of her, I saw the cover. Which, if you've seen the shoots she did for Maxim and FHM, there wasn't much of a difference between those and the cover shot. Still, I hadn't really planned on seeing Beard in the Buff. Not on my to do list, thanks.

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I told Dr. Rosana that my heart was a series of doors.

Some are old, ancient doors, thick and knotted, scarred and carved and ornate. Engraved doors with gilded lattice work. There are French doors with windows that show so clearly what is inside. Doors that are simple and thin, doors that have steel around them to withstand the beating of what was held inside, plates bolted over the large wounds from things that had escaped by powering through the wood. All of them had locks. All of them had so many locks. But not all of those locks were used: some doors were deadbolted and chained and stopped. Some were wide open. It all depended on what was inside.

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I got it. The invite to the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro. I don't know what to do. I don't know. How does this balance out?

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I feel like a horrible person.

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It's not that I was aching for our time in Disney to end. Though, I was ready. My training was a joke down there, and I was ready for my own bed, my own routine--and different clothes--again. Whatever magic I made down there in the kingdom of Disney...I was ready to come home.

But I have to say that having it end today, today was perfect. Father's Day. I feel a bit bad, missing Dad's birthday yesterday, though he and Mom swear they had a wonderful time at the Vineyard, a trip that I wouldn't have been able to go on anyway, because of swimming. They had a wonderful, romantic time, and Dad swears that other than having me there, he couldn't have asked for more. Which is the lie he tells himself every birthday.

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The house is full of noise. The Freemans and the Bererras are sitting in the living room, holding hands like long lost friends, talking about how you fill a daughter-shaped hole in your life. And somehow, the Bererras, whose loss is still so new, are providing a comfort to the Freemans that I haven't seen them feel in years.

Dr Kipler is talking with Isaac's dad--my God, Fred looks the exact same as I remember him from when I was thirteen, just with a few more lines on his face--about how hard it is to work in an HMO-dominated medical field. Isaac was listening in hungrily, but he's here in my room, along with the Mercer boys, since we decided to escape and put on the 2007 Fiesta Bowl DVD. We all needed a bit of a break. And I was struck with the urge to write. Right now. Get it all down now.

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It feels like home, to be back in the water. My body aches, it is screaming at me, and no amount of time in a steaming bath can make it stop. But I love it, the feeling of finding my limits and just battering them. I've missed this. I didn't realize it until I was here. Swimming is a part of who I am.

It's just not all of me.

I'd be lying if I said that I was hoping that now, one of the things I could say about myself was that I was someone's girlfriend. His girlfriend. But that's not how it is--Logan needs to take this slowly, and how I feel about him...it was showing. And not in a good way, but in a way that made him feel pushed. He didn't come out and say it, but I think he knows that I'm in love with him. Which...I never, ever meant for him to know until I knew that we both felt that way. I was so scared the entire time we talked that he'd say that we were over, but he didn't. He just said that he needed us to keep moving slowly. Not just physically, but emotionally. My mind has been all over the place, and I think it's good that I'm swimming again. It lets me channel in a lot of that "extra" feeling, let it out. I'm going to put that love in the pool so that he and I can be on the same page. This means too much to me. Fast in the water, slow on the dry land. This is something I can do.

Look at me. Here, in love. Here, with someone I am dating. Tomorrow, I'm hanging out with Kristy and Erica, and I am graduating high school. I know my journal entry on Thursday will be a whopper, I can feel it in my hands, so I won't--I won't go into that now. I've brushed up against this before, this idea of being here. And on a day that celebrates the end of one part of our life and looking forward? On a day where we'll get Amelia's diploma, that it will be a ceremonial thing, but I will get mine and it will be real? It will be something that I can't escape, that I used to not want to be here. But I am. I am. I made it.

I can't sleep. Usually, Monday night journal entries are just what Logan and I did at dinner, what made me laugh the most, my favorite moment, things he said to get me thinking...what we cooked...just putting my memories to page. And tonight was--just another dinner night, me laughing so hard at one point that my legs turned to water, so much talking...and now, there is a little kissing and touching and there is flirting, and I can't believe that's becoming part of the usual dinner night routine, too.

But that's not what has me lying in bed, staring at the ceiling in a glaze of awe. I've met lots of famous swimmers before. I've said hi to Katie Hoff and Kate Ziegler, I've had a real conversation with Hayley Piersol, I've giggled with Emily Bruenemann over a malfuntioning starter's flash, Alyssa Kiel and I bitched about our 800s at Nationals, Maritza Corriea and I once had a talk about our strokes while waiting in line at a pool concessions stand. And I had dinner with Natalie Coughlin. And lunch with Amanda Beard, though I didn't say thing to her directly. The people I talk to at meets now, at Juniors? In a few years, these could be the names they say on TV for the 2012 Olympics, easily. Oh. And I've stood near Michael Phelps before. I think we breathed the same air.

Today, though, I talked to Jenny Thompson, who is the best female American swimmer, period. She didn't do my events, like Katie and Kate are doing now, and she's not my idol, like Natalie or--God help me, Janet Evans. If I met Janet Evans, I would, guaranteed, pass out on the pool deck and then cry. She's the alpha and omega of distance swimming--I--Janet, whoa. But Jenny Thompson, she's rarified air. Her and Janet and Dara Torres (also Jewish, rock), Mary T. Meagher, Summer Sanders--they all set the bar for American women, revolutionizing times and smashing them right down. And now...they've all grown up, left competitive swimming, have lives. But--these lives didn't start out of thin air. While they were swimming, they were cultivating what happened out of the pool.

Jenny gave me a lot of great advice, and it boils down to this: sacrifice. Somethings have to go in your life if you want to make a chase for the podium, for the record books. But nothing says that letting something go means you can't pick it back up again. Things will change, but you are changing, too. Nothing is set, and nothing is permanent, but you have to be aware that some things won't wait for you. But others will. A hospice will still be there if you're not working six hours a day. Baking will, too. Friends, no. Your swimming, no. It's a push and pull of evolution...and you have to take a photo of your life and decide, what has to be cropped out, and what can go into the background. What stays in focus.

I don't have all of my answers yet, but today, a spotlight was shined on my thoughts. And I think I'm really ready to make the choices that I've been struggling with for a while now. This is my life. I'm going to decide how to live it.

Logan kissed me. Twice.

I..still feel twenty feet above the ground. Mom, Dad, and I sat in the kitchen, rolling the ice cream ball around, as I told them about the night--and it still feels like a dream. A perfect night with this man that I love. The start of something, I hope...

He brought me flowers. He made sure that I could eat a real dinner. He did all of that work so I could have a treat that I love. He held my hand. He called me beautiful. He ran his fingers in my hair, twisted them up in all of the locks like they belonged there. He kissed me. Twice.

I can barely form a sentence.

I can barely think.

I am going to close the computer, climb into bed with my bunny that he gave me, that I renamed, and curl around it, and think: I just had the perfect night. Third guy I dated. And this one...was everything I had hoped for. And better.

Logan kissed me...

I don't even know where to begin.

I'm back home, smelling like salt and sand and everything good from my childhood. The Vineyard was the one place that was safe. Norah never showed up there unexpectedly. My parents, even in their sadness, found peace on the shore. Before Grandfather became too frail to come to the island, he and Marmee and Uncle Eli and then my family and sometimes Amelia would all stay in the house, a jumble of noise and energy and happiness. We'd hang out with the Shoens and the Wolcotts and the Darders and the Steins, and it was just safe. Twenty-two miles away from land, we were safe. Happy.

I'm feeling happy again.

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Carmen died. Her father figured out the other day that she was probably waiting for the Easter Bunny, and then after she responded to the flowers...we came up with this plan, that maybe she'd wake up...and let go. And she did.

In the time that I've worked at the hospice, sixty-three children have died. And I love them all. All of the nurses and doctors and volunteers fall in love with one child every so often. There's just a connection. But the nurses and doctors...they're better at making peace and moving on than those of us who just come by every so often. I'm getting better at it. Because I sat in my parents' arms for a while and just let myself be held, but then I was able to get up, hug the Bererras goodbye, say goodbye to Dr. Kipler...and come home.

I miss her, and I am sad...but I have been mourning for her for a week now. The hardest day was last Thursday, when she slipped into her coma. To not see my Cammie smile when I walked in the door. I saw her smile again today. Not every death has to ache, burn, hurt like Amy's.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 is the famous, "A Time to..." litany. It was a time to mourn this past week; now it is a time to die. Next...it is a time to heal, to build up. For the Bererras...I don't know how much time they will need. This was their love, their child, their sister. For me...I loved her, she was my sweetheart. But she died smiling. She died at peace. When I started working here, it was to remind myself that there was something larger than my own pain. And tonight, I hurt, but there is something larger--God, whomever you believe that to be, is larger. He made this her time.

And so, I let go. Amy, Watch over my Cammie tonight...and smile with her as she plays in a garden that always grows.

I never finished my journal from last night. I made it two sentences in, but my head was a mush, and nothing came out of my pen except, "Yale. Wow." Insightful, Bee. Scintillating stuff.

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It's funny. I type in certain journal entries, ones that I think are important, that give me a good chain of the big thoughts and events in my life. Not all of them, but a lot of the biggies.

The last journal I typed in, I was so certain that Logan and I were going to work. And now...I'm going to let go.

Mom and I have been talking a lot tonight--she says that it just won't work, the timing is wrong, and that if I keep hoping and thinking about this, I'm going to hurt not just my friendship with Elway, but also start to erode who I am with all of this pressure. Maybe she's right. So, I am going to not wish and hope and pray for this. I'm just going to be Red. I've never had a friendship, a chemistry, with another person like I have with Elway. That's more important, right? I can tell him anything--and he knows he can tell me. We laugh and get so silly, we can be serious and honest, we just...I shine when I'm with him. All of this pressure...I want us to shine as bright as we can. I don't want to dim us with my heart's huge shadow.

I'm still in love with him. I don't know when that will stop. But I'll think of...dead puppies or whatever Mom said. Or not. I'll just think of a life without my Elway. That's sadness enough to keep me grounded, not give into the huge want, the gigantic need that I have.

Dad has been really quiet about all of this. I think Mom told him that she would handle it--because of girl talk? I mean, hearing about Mom and some of her loves has been wonderful. And helpful. And tells me a lot about her that I had always wondered. I'm really blessed that at least this good has come from it all: I'm having the best night with my mom. I just...would like to know what Dad is thinking, too. Maybe later on.

Mom has picked out The Godfather. We're going to leave the gun, take the cannoli. Leave how I feel for Logan, take what we have. And that...has to be enough.

Thank you all for coming here today and helping to revitalize and renew this Garden, this tangible celebration and remembrance of the life of Amelia Louise Freeman. Your acts of kindness and generosity mirrors Amy, her own kind and generous spirit. It is a fitting way to remember her, to act like her. Though she hated gardening. Too dirty. ( Read more... )