winning

Summer in Georgia is like winter in Massachusetts. You don't go outside unless you are going to stay cool or stay warm (in MA) and you don't go outside unless you have to. Today was the first summer swim team meet and it was well over 100 degrees. The problem is that we only swim for about 5 minutes and the rest is dying in the heat. And the mom volunteers (well, really it's more like mandatory military duty to your team) don't even get to go swimming - they just bake in their own sweat.
We got to the oven (the parking lot) at 4pm, which is without a doubt the worst time of day to be outside. And no one was sweating. I think perhaps our family has a sweating problem because no one - all of the kids wearing shirts and hats and their hair falling in their faces were not sweating but the kid without a shirt (don't worry I was wearing a swim suit) and with her hair out of her face - me - could feel the concrete melting onto the bottom of my suit. Fun times.
Then the smoke from the grill wafted into our bullpen and it just added to the heat and smog. I literally thought I was going to pass out on the melting concrete. Right in the middle of the meet.
And the water in the pool isn't even cold. It's like bath water. Which isn't too refreshing. But that's ok. Because summer swim meets, with their sweltering heat, children grafitti-ed with "eat my bubbles" on their tan backs, and the pyscho coaches, make the summer feel more like summer.
What would summer be without all those unforgettable memories? I mean, the old swim team I was on only had about 40 people on it, and because of our size, we lost every meet we ever went to. We were even 19th place out of 19 teams at the championship meet. But it's really not about winning, and I know I'm going to sound like the underdog coach who just says having fun is the most important thing, but really, it is - the memories I have are of having fun swimming, not of winning (not that our team did a whole lot of that, but there was this one time when no one came to my meet and I won every event I was in and no one saw it except my coaches).
Next time something comes up, try to not remind yourself of winning. Remind yourself of the fun that you are missing by worrying about winning.
For the record, we did win this meet. Our relay dominated.