blue oblivion

I shuffled over to the pool's edge yesterday afternoon, dodging puddles and little kids, sweating slightly from my brisk mile walk from the train station, the relatively warm weather, and the hellishly wet, warm locker room.

"Hey Lindsey," my coach declared from the pool with a wave and a smile. "You're the youngest person on the team now! You beat the youngest by four months!"

Evidently, I joined a swim team. I think it's safe to announce now that I've canceled my gym membership, filled out my forms, written a check, and been to every practice but one for the past two weeks. Apparently, in addition to being arguably the most out-of-shape swimmer on the team, I'm also the youngest.

I'm no stranger to being the youngest--odd, I know, considering I'm the oldest in my family. Regardless, by virtue of the fact that my birthday is on the late end of the Kindergarten cut-off date, I have always surrounded myself with people that are slightly older. And since graduating, the people I have surrounded myself with are older still--I'm the youngest in my apartment, the youngest in my office, the youngest of most of my friends (even those still in college), the younger in my relationship...

It doesn't matter, really. I was making friends at swimming who were 24 and 30 before anyone knew the difference. But still, there is a slight difference. I tend to group all of my peers in the same general age group, the 20s, but I constantly have to remind myself that while I'm figuring out what I want to do with my life and anticipating my one-year anniversary with my boyfriend, my 27-28-year-old friends might be thinking about marriage and kids. That, and they like to make fun of me for being as old as their younger, snot-nosed siblings.

But if my same-aged peers are not at work and not swimming and not living with me and are not my friends, where are they? Some of them are in college, some are traveling the world, some are in grad school, some are living with their parents--there's no way to know for sure.

Lucky for me, my age is not holding me back at swimming, thanks to my youthful muscles and my many, many years of swimming regularly before my couple-year hiatus in college. Regardless of how successful I am at it, I've come to realize that it's just plain essential for my sanity: I never realized how much I needed a time without cell phones and computers and dealing with people and expectations. It's an hour off three times a week, and it's small in comparison to the 40 hours per week I work and the 168 hours per week I worry, but it certainly helps.