The Other Woman

I used to joke with JP that I'll never be jealous of another woman, I know full well how devoted he is to me, but my goodness am I sometimes jealous of that chlorinated hole in the ground he can't go three days without. Now, eight years into our chlorine-filled love triangle, I've realized that I don't resent the time JP gives to swimming or even the sport's importance to him, I resent the fact that he takes the time to do something I don't. All the excuses I list for not finding time to work out apply to him as well - when he was doing investment banking and I was the student, they applied to him 10x more than me and yet he still swam at least 4 times a week. Most of thosee days he'd get up for Landon's early morning feeding around 5 a.m., put him back to bed and then drive straight to the pool (a trip that added 45 mins to his already hour long commute). He's never let his self-imposed practice schedule get in the way of his roles as husband and father and in realizing that I've been able to stop the occasional comments or eye rolls.

I reap a few benefits from JP's swimming habit. One, it keeps him healthy and helps battle his family's very bad history of heart disease. Two, everyone needs a passion and there are worse ones out there. Three, as a former swimmer I usually enjoy the sport's continued presence in my life. Four, it keeps him looking like this:

I'm not going to lie, I enjoy #4 quite a lot.

This weekend JP decided to register for a big meet at UT's Swim Center. The TSC is a famed natatorium in Texas. As a little summer leaguer I dreamed of one day swimming there and finally did for four high school States and a few other big meets (and then again as part of the team). Even after years as JP's cheerleader and not a swimmer myself I still feel my pulse quicken when I first walk through the doors. Some great swimming has taken place in that pool.

I wasn't sure how well JP would do at this meet. It's been a long time since he's trained properly or competed, but he insisted that he's stronger now than he was in college even if he doesn't have the same level of endurance. And I should never have doubted- with Landon and I cheering him on, he finaled in both his events and got second in the one he swam again tonight (he had to scratch the other, as an "old man" he didn't think he could do both twice in one day). Here he is with his game face on:

It was fun to be back in the stands, though it was the first time I'd ever sat down and not known any of the other spectators. It was even more fun to hold Landon in my lap and say, "Look, there's Dada!" when JP was called to the blocks. I thought back on all the meets I've watched him swim, starting from my freshman year of college, and I'm not sure I ever thought I'd be taking our nearly 2-year old son to watch him race in the same pool. We were both very proud. Or at least I was very proud. Landon probably was too, but he was mostly busy racing up and down the ramps, waving to all the swimmers on deck, dancing to the music for the championship heats, and humbly accepting the crowd's applause. I think he enjoyed his time at the TSC almost as much as his dad.