17.

Still Water

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to see, to find, and not to yield.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”

London Olympics, 50 Free Final, August 3, 2012

I’m here at the Olympics but my Games are over. Fifth place. No medal. I’m left only with the memory of a terrible start that will haunt me for days, for weeks, for who knows how long . . . After yesterday’s semifinal swim, where I came in third despite a poor start and finish, I really felt like I could pull it off and win finals. Alas, Fortuna shone elsewhere.

I just want to hole up by myself. As I walk back to my room in the Olympic Village I start receiving texts that a dinner has been organized for me at a Thai restaurant. It’s my only chance to see the friends and family who flew out to support me, since some are leaving early tomorrow. But if I go to the dinner, I won’t make curfew, which could have major repercussions as it did in 2000 in Sydney when I was thrown out of the Olympic Village and had to watch the closing ceremony alone at a beach hostel. For months now I’ve obeyed every rule, wielding a moral certainty in my behavior and abstaining from even the smallest indulgences that might derail me. So far I’ve been nearly flawless on that front. And now here I am, in a possible refiguring of that fateful moment when I went out in Sydney and got busted because I was late, because I broke the rules. I don’t want that to happen again. I won’t miss closing ceremonies this time.

When I arrive at the apartment, my roommates, Jason Lezak and Eric Shanteau, both team elders themselves, don’t bring up the race or ask how I’m dealing with the fallout. It’s the elephant in the room. But they’re also not treating me as pitiable or pathetic. They’re behaving as they always do with me, like bros, cracking jokes, talking to me like I’m a normal dude. That’s when it becomes clear to me that the people waiting in that restaurant are too important to me, that I’d be a fool and a slave if I didn’t see them just because of a curfew and whatever that curfew may mean to the administrators. The rules of family and friendship trump all. Maybe that makes me dishonorable to the code enforcers, but does it make me dishonorable to my friends and family? What matters is not the letter of the rules but the spirit. And that means not disturbing those swimmers still competing. That’s what’s important. If I get in trouble and the overseers send me on my way as they did in Australia, I’ll find a way to deal with it graciously.

I put on street clothes and make my way out of the Village, navigating what feels like an endless series of security checkpoints. Eventually I’m spit out into the teeming mass of a crowded mall. For the first time in a while I’m not an athlete. I’m not quarantined in the Olympic Village in uniform. I’m wearing a gray shirt and jeans, just another passerby in a bustling swarm of strangers. Here I’m as invisible as all the selves I’ve left behind—the lonely kid with the tics, the pyrotechnic delinquent, the broke couch surfer, the suicidal wastrel, the Zen Buddhist, the crotchrocket squid, the dreadlocked guitarist—selves I’ve left behind but whose shadows still linger with me.

The world is returning to me, or maybe retreating from me, in a way completely foreign to everything that’s led up to the race. The isolation I felt after the race now takes on a new form, one of cold urban anonymity. But whereas some people find this variety of urban isolation alienating, for me it’s welcome right now. No one here looks upon me with pity. Their eyes just pass over me, they don’t know or care who I am. In this moment, it’s unexpectedly liberating. I’m unburdened of responsibilities, of the media, of obligations to be a mouthpiece for this or that.

I’ve prepared at a higher level than ever before. No partying, no drinking, no skipping practices. But this time there was no victory, at least not in terms of merit and domination, which is how I formerly understood victory. That kind of success was corrosive. It brought out demons in me, made me the protagonist of a script others had written, like an actor miscast to play the hero. At the Sydney Olympics my identity was constructed upon that version of success. And later I paid for it. To have now tried my hardest and not won is a humbling new experience. Maybe it’s even a new kind of victory, overthrowing my former concept of success as merit and conquest and replacing it with something deeper and weightier.

But as I arrive at the restaurant, Busaba Eathai, I’m overcome with fear. Fear I failed to live up to hopes and expectations, fear I’ve let everyone down, fear I’ll have to deal with their disappointment and sadness. Walking earlier from the pool to my room, I felt ashamed. I almost used the rules as an excuse to not go out. But here I am.

When I open the door and see so many people—my mother, who through the incredible grief of her childhood would never abandon me or fail to bring me home no matter how lost I became; my father, who maintained confidence and conviction in my strength even as I cast myself into danger over and over; Mike Bottom, the coach who cared more about the kid in search of himself than the Olympic champion, who invited me into his home even after I cast aside his original purpose; Della, a kindred spirit who never stopped praying for me or opening her home to me no matter how dark the night; my friends Lars, Amir, Elliot, Conz, all who stayed by my side through the light and the dark, always sharing joy with each other; and many other people from all the years—when I see the way all their faces light up, the fog lifts, and with it the rush of so many memories in that moment, and I have to forgive myself for all the shame I’ve carried, the bad choices, the abuse, the harm I’ve caused those I love. I know it’s from ignorance and pride, and that all it makes me is human. What have I actually suffered? As I look into humanity, I have not yet suffered. It all still lies before me, in a future I cannot help but race toward. But what I do know is that I’m alive, my existence affirmed in these smiling, cheering faces. The cheers and celebration are not supposed to be about proving myself over others, but giving my all despite the limits of my humanity. My awareness expands beyond this room, to the many who have helped this foolish human, and I well up with gratitude for all these blessed people who have been so tolerant of my mistakes and waywardness. I stand humbled.