There lay scattered an epic, intrusive, and aggressive battle driven by gravity between my macaroni and cheese, and my breaded chicken.

The macaroni would charge at the bread borders and the benevolent Deity's steel prongs would dip in to hold them off. Peace was restored.

“do you like any sports” my dad casually asked interrupting the heavenly oversight of my ceramic microcosm.
“no?” I thought it would end there. I was wrong
“come on ale you have to do something”
“no, not really dad”
“I already tried playing soccer when I was younger and I didn't like it. Why would I do it again?”
In my 14 year old brain I thought he was just suggesting this to annoy me and say his child plays sports. I now know it was just to make sure I got into a healthy lifestyle. Which I'm thankful for now.
"Well you have to do something... How's about basketball you're tall"

Have you ever heard something so stupid that it made your head contort in fury, boiling your blood but only for a fraction of a second before it’s rapidly cooled with the distraction of a flood of logic that points the flaws in said stupid idea. Yeah that took place

I have never played basketball in my life. I can barely dribble. Why would I start now in the 7th grade? How would I even make it on the team? The people on the team have been playing basketball for years and some of them don't even make it. I’ll give my dad some credit though. I was one of the tallest kids around so maybe he thought I would have an advantage. Good intentions or not it was still just nonsensical and the echos of frustration still resonate in me today (at 16).

“I would do better in soccer, at least I know how to play! I would even do better in gymnastics than basketball of all sports!”
“You’re doing it.” He shrugged and looked down to his plate trying to finish the subject without a fight. However I was already in pursuit
“How’s about swimming?” I threw out without the hesitation of thought.
I always had a fascination with water. Especially pools, puddles, moats, water falls, and in video games. Oddly enough large bodies of water like the ocean and great lakes were menacing and gave me an eerie uneasy feeling. It was so alluring seeing it in video games though and being able to plunge into it was very dainty. Especially in the early 2000’s when the video game industry was perfecting the water’s physics engines and graphics. It was beautiful. Immersion among these aqueous kinetic energy transferring space tears was like being engulfed in a different reality of fresh, suspending, watered down magic. Certainly I wouldn’t have too much resentment towards being put into swimming.

“Ok”, my father nodded. “fine with me… you’ll have to go back to swim classes though”.
“better than basketball”
A couple of weeks after I had been signed up for swim classes at the clarkston high school pool. I entered the pool that day at level 3 and left level 4. I guess I still retained what I learned in the swim classes I took at the Ymca when I was 5.
When I reached level 6 I had a new teacher. His name was Eric. He was this hulking broad shouldered able bodied man with blondish brown short hair.
I approached him.
“hey how’s it going” he asked in a well mannered but casual tone.
“Im good… ready to swim… hey so what will I be learning in level 6”
“not much… just perfecting what you know”
“oh”
On the last day of class I already had complied with the American Red Cross checklist for a level 6 swimmer. Which isn’t that herculean considering the hardest prerequisite was to be able to swim a 500 yd free which is child’s play for any swimmer. With that in mind it was one of the hardest athletic things I had done to that date.
I hadn't had my breathing technique down for such a long swim so I wasn't taking in enough oxygen to replace the oxygen that my muscles were using. This anaerobic respiration left lactic acid that would ache me the following morning.

We spent the last day just talking. I told him about my friend from school who swims on a team. His name is James
“oh james? I know him! Yeah he’s fast. His older brother was the swim team captain. James himself will be on the team next year”
“Whats the team like”
“Oh its challenging but its fun. There are all-night parties, spaghetti dinners, christmas gift exchanges, bagels after saturday morning practice, and just the people in it is worth it. We’re all like brothers and we all get through the challenges of swimming together… and yeah were just all close”

that sounded really cool.
“Hey maybe I should try it”
“Well lets go talk to coach kelly!”
We walked over to a blond lady who was standing next to the diving board giving the workout to the swimmers in the lane

“Hey kelly, this one wants to start swimming!” said Eric excitedly
coach made a face I interpreted as surprised and with the same level of enthusiasm said,” great! he can start with white group monday”

After I left the pool I walked outside feeling the winds of change on my shoulders. My steps carried me to the car and after exchanging greetings with my mom I stared out the window for the rest of that content ride home trying to contemplate what I had done.