I suppose I’m writing this because I heard something on the local radio, a story about a young lady, a swimmer, going for some big championship, and it just… well, it took me right back. To a time when I was just as young and, I daresay, just as foolish. I was probably… oh, twenty years old, maybe twenty-one. Had just moved back home after a stint away, couldn’t make a go of things in the city, you see. Not enough opportunity for a girl with my particular set of skills, and that’s a whole other story, a long one, about my father’s expectations and how they never quite aligned with reality, but that’s not why I’m here. No, this is about the shoulder. The click. I remember it so clearly, a sort of crepitus, wasn’t it? That’s the word they use now, I think. A faint little *tick* sometimes, like a grasshopper’s leg rubbing, deep in the joint when I’d bring my arm up for a backstroke pull. Coach would say, "Agnes, you’re looking strong today, really driving through the water!" And I’d smile, a big, beaming smile, but inside, I could feel it, just a whisper of a sensation, a little hitch in the machinery. We were a small town, you see, Northfork. Still is, really. One doctor, old Dr. Peterson, and he was good, mind you, delivered half the babies in the county, but he wasn’t a sports doctor. Didn't have the fancy equipment. And if he told Coach Miller I was out, that was it. No trip to the city for a second opinion. No physical therapy. Just… out. And this was the year, you see. The YEAR. We were going to sectionals. We were going to STATES. No one from Northfork had ever gone to states for swimming. Ever. Not in the twenty-five years Coach Miller had been there. And he was counting on me, Agnes Mae Higgins, to anchor the medley relay. The pressure, you know? It was palpable. Like a heavy wet blanket. And every time that little click happened, it felt like a tiny little pinprick in that blanket, threatening to tear the whole thing apart. I remember practicing my starts, launching off the block, and thinking, *Don’t click. Don’t click. Just hold it together, Agnes.* My roommate, Betty Lou, she asked once, "You ever hear something in your shoulder, Agnes? Like a little pop?" I just shook my head. "Must be all that rice krispie cereal you eat," I told her, trying to make a joke of it. But I think she knew. She had that look in her eye, the one that says *I’m not fooled*. I did it, though. I made it through. We went to states. We didn’t win, mind you, not first place, but we made it into the top three. It was a victory, a monumental one for Northfork. And I swam, oh, I swam my heart out. Every stroke a prayer, every breath a desperate plea to the universe. And the shoulder… it held. Until the very last lap of the very last race, the freestyle relay. My leg. I pushed off the wall, and this time it wasn’t a click. It was a GRIND. A real, honest-to-goodness, bone-on-bone grind, like rocks in a sluice. I finished the race, God knows how, pulled myself out of the water, and just stood there, dripping, the pain like a hot poker. Coach Miller came over, beaming, "Agnes, you were MAGNIFICENT!" And I just… I couldn’t even lift my arm to shake his hand. It turned out to be a torn rotator cuff, a pretty severe one, they said, when I finally went to Dr. Peterson. He just shook his head, a sad, knowing look on his face. "Why didn't you say anything, Agnes?" he asked. And I just shrugged, the pain too much to even form words. I suppose it was a type of self-sabotage, wasn’t it? The ego's delusion of invincibility, coupled with the immense pressure of external validation. It took a long time to heal. Years, really. And I never swam competitively again. Sometimes, even now, when I’m hanging laundry on the line, or reaching for a can on a high shelf, I feel a little ache, a reminder of what was and what could have been. A championship season, indeed. They call it a bittersweet memory, and I suppose that's exactly what it is. A very, very long time ago.