1. You took pride in Australia's great swimming tradition.
2. Liesel Jones, Libby Tricket, and Grant Hackett were a few of your heroes.
Not to mention Susie O'Neill, Ian Thorpe, Kieren Perkins, Giaan Rooney, Nick D'Arcy, etc...
3. Chlorine was your signature scent.
4. You had an array of colourful swim caps.
5. Which you'd coordinate with your trusty one-pieces.
6. If you had long hair, you ended up with one of these weird buns.
7. But it didn't stop you from experiencing the heartache of your cap slipping off your head.
8. You owned school swimming carnivals.
9. And most of the time your coach insisted on attending them.
10. And they would go out of their way to embarrass you in front of everyone.
11. How your coach's voice alone managed to cut through the water is a mystery to this day.
12. When your coach let you wear fins for a set, it was like Christmas came early.
13. Especially if that set was butterfly.
14. People looked at you funny when you said you attended swim practice at 6 a.m. In the winter. Voluntarily.
15. You hated how cold the pool was every time you jumped in.
16. But 30 seconds later, you were fine.
17. Seeing how many strokes you could do straight without breathing was a low-key contest amongst your squad.
18. And minimising the number of backstrokes it took to reach the wall from the flags was your Everest.
19. You rocked that Australian Crawl.
20. You were guilty of tugging on the lane lines.
21. Your goggles have snapped in half, mid sprint.
22. And finding a good leak-proof pair of goggles was like finding a rare jewel.
23. So rare, that you refuse to take them off between sets.
24. But the price of keeping them on all practice were these ~sexy~ suction marks.
25. Whenever you finished a set, there was a high probability that snot was dripping down your face.
26. And sometimes your suit would ride up and give you a wedgie.
27. Tan lines were also a part of your aesthetic, especially in the Aussie summer.
28. As a woman, hair removal was a massive chore...
29. ...that you were guilty of skipping on the reg.
30. Which wasn't even that gross, since you were pretty much desensitised to the naked human body.
31. You got sick and tired of people always telling you that you'd develop abnormally large shoulders.
32. You have swallowed an obscene amount of pool water.
33. There were times you felt more at ease in the water than on land.
34. And most of all, the bond you formed with your fellow swimmates was like no other.
