This is the definition of my life: the world around me is continuous, barely any time to breathe, nonstop activities, hard enough to find time to rest.

I love my life and the way it is run, even though it is hectic and a nonstop train leading to where? My future. I attend school activities, am athletic, volunteer at church, and have a job. I have done my best with balancing work, swimming, and friends. It’s tough to do, but I do my best at it.

I am not the most outgoing person, but I am able to adapt to new environments. In preschool I had a best friend forever, a boyfriend and a class of friends that I barely knew. Just like every other kid, we were all enemies one day and friends the next. In first grade I moved to a new school and things weren’t the same. I no longer had the best friend I had known for three years, but a new group of kids that already had their own group. I found out the hard way that it’s not easy making friend when you don’t come to them first. With this new lesson learned, I made a new best friend that felt like she never really fit in. We had our own group and soon the numbers grew. Eventually everyone became a part of the new group and the whole grade was friends. Things became difficult for me again in fifth grade when my friends were all hanging out on Friday nights. I would be at swim practice and then have to go to bed early that night for a swim meet the next morning. With my intensity in swimming growing it made it difficult to hold onto my school friends when they were making new best friends and I was left out. I made many new friends in swimming, but because of the time consuming and intensity of sport, many kids my age did not want to put forth all the time and effort. One friend after another quit. I was not a very good swimmer, so I was with all the new kids that would soon quit. I started to age up into different groups, having to work harder than ever, and focused on the sport more than friends. There were three girls that were almost always in the same group as me, but I never really noticed them. We would occasionally talk but never hang out. I learned to focus on the sport more than the friend aspect of swimming, and found myself getting best times at all the meets I swam at. I became great friends with the three girls, and did not lose focus on the sport.

I have the ability to focus on one thing and let others fall into place. Without my hard work in swimming and friends cheering me on I would not have been able to place second over all in my age group at the state championship meet this past summer. Although my life is nonstop I love it and right now I would do nothing to change that.