Over the course of your swimming career you will experience a litany of emotions. You will learn how to challenge yourself, how to set goals, and how to push yourself beyond your wildest expectations. There are also a series of firsts, a common set of rites-of-passage that we all share and experience at varying points of the relationship we have with the pool. They are the memories that will last with you long after you have hung up the jammer, put away the swim goggles, and rinsed out your head of chlorine with a swimmer’s shampoo for the last time.

1. Your first swimmer crush.

They come into our lives unexpectedly; sometimes it is from the lane over, from another group, or that guy or girl you only ever see at meets.