Dear Sebastian,
Hey man! It’s you, four years from now. I know you’re reading this, excited for what’s to come. You’re sitting there, about to graduate 8th grade, getting ready to enter the next phase of your life. You’re probably nervous, not knowing what’s to come. I’m writing this wanting to give you an inside look at how this new chapter of your life will play out.
Freshmen Year
Freshmen year will be a time of discovery. You’ll try many new things, make some mistakes, and learn some important lessons. You’re walking into Jesuit Swimming & Diving ready to make an immediate impact on the team. You’ll do just that. You’ll contribute as a scorer, most of the time backing up William in the 500. And yes, distance will forever be your thing. More importantly you’ll meet a guy named Coach Doug. Of anyone at Jesuit, he will make the greatest impact. You’ll spend many hours between club and high school, and he’ll make a hefty contribution to your growth into a Man For Others.
In addition to Jesuit Swimming and Diving, you’ll join the Roundup, on the suggestion of your mother (of course), setting you on a path that will permeantly impact your time at Jesuit. You’ll meet juniors named Peter Loh and Anthony Nguyen, who will mentor you for the next couple of years. Heck, it’s the reason I’m sitting here writing this. You’ll start as a lowly staff writer, but that is just the beginning…
During this time your faith will also start to deepen. Jesuit will provide you with many opportunities to engage with your faith. You’ll start helping out at all-school masses, mostly because you got a random RangerNet message from a Deacon Chris Knight. You’ll attend daily mass weekly, but struggle to stay consistent. You’ll also join Rangers for Life, run by a lady named Mrs. Katy Wilson, who you met on your shadow day. This club will become one of the essential pieces of your Jesuit experience.
Outside of Jesuit, your school schedule will force you to switch club teams. You’ll switch to Dallas Mustangs Swim Team, and at first, you’ll have trouble initially fitting in. Your first coach will be a man named Coach Paul. He’ll push you with extremely hard sets, but most importantly he’ll help shape your determination and resiliency that you’ll carry for the next four years. You’ll also meet this girl named Natalie. You and Natalie will not get along initially, and she’ll probably think you’re a bit annoying, but you two will become better friends as the years go on.
Freshman year will be an adjustment. Homework will get a lot tougher, expectations will rise, and Mustangs will introduce you to Sunday practices (spoiler: you won’t go to half of them). You’ll end freshmen year well, setting the tone to build on your success during your sophomore year.
Sophomore Year
After a great freshman year, you’ll come into sophomore year on a roll. At the end of the summer, your mentor Anthony Nguyen will inform you that you had been forcibly promoted to Associate Editor. The thing that started out a “casual activity” is slowly giving you more responsiblity.
This is the year you’ll start training with Dallas Mustangs’ National Team. You’ll meet a man named Coach Mook, who’ll you’ll stick with for the rest of your high school years. He’s a quiet fellow, but carries a great deal of wisdom, as well as a lot of stories. Training with this group, you’ll meet a bunch of people who will show you much love, people who are an absolute joy to be around. You’ll meet Danielle, who will appreciate singing and dancing as much as you do. You’ll also meet Phoebe, Hanna, and Abby, three Bishop Lynch seniors. Finally, you’ll meet Amie. Amie will become a mentor for you. She’ll push you to keep going, engage with you, and help you when you don’t know what the heck you’re doing.
Within Jesuit two people who you will become very close with will spawn into your life. The first is Zach Ingham, you first meet him because he camped out in the English Commons, and because he’ll join the Roundup. Zach will become one of your closest friends and will eventually lead the Roundup with you. The second is JJ Kinzer. To be honest, I can’t quite remember how we met him, but we did. He’ll join Rangers for Life because of your recommendation and will become a consistent member the rest of the time at Jesuit. What will strike you most about him is his knowledge and admiration for the Catholic faith. This will come into play later.
With regards to swimming, you’ll be on top of the world. You’ll start dropping immense amounts of time because of the new, intense training you’ll receive. However, there is still room to grow, as on the first day Mook will make you do up-downs because you can’t streamline for your life. You’ll also have to learn many lessons in humility. Your mentality unfortunately changed, and you became way overconfident. You’ll start acting like a senior, and it’s something you’ll have to learn to tone down.
The fall will be highlighted by one particular race, the 500 freestyle at the North Zone TISCA. During that race, you’ll drop a whopping eight seconds. After you finish, you’ll look to see Coach Doug and the boys cheering you on, and on the other side you’ll see Amie, Hanna, Abby, and Phoebe screaming their heads off because you dusted the guy in second. This image perfectly encapsulates the community of people that surrounds you.
This year, one of the big moments is your first post-season. You’ll swim the district meet for the first time, and you’ll win two silvers and two golds. You carry hopes for state into the region meet but unfortunately will get sick right before. You’ll however still make it in one of the relays. State turned out to be an awesome experience. Your first state will be a bit overwhelming, but you’ll do just fine.
This spring will be an eventful one. The Roundup will pick up, and you’ll start to cover more events around the school. Late in the year, you’ll be announced as the new News Editor, working alongside Zach, who was named the Viewpoint Editor. However arguably more important you’ll hear about this new college counselor named Mrs. Anna Buehn. Just trying to do your job as News Editor, you’ll conduct an interview with her. This will turn into one of your closest faculty relationships at Jesuit.
Also that spring, you’ll be looking at a college fair, just going school by school. There, you’ll run into a random Jesuit school in Ohio called John Carroll University. You find out they have a swim program, and decide to email the coach, not thinking much about it. Little did you know that one interaction will put you on a pathway to Cleaveland.
That summer you’ll have some of the most fun you’ve ever had. You’ll get your driver’s license (yay freedom!) and start driving yourself. You’ll begin consistent work at the J and learn lessons of responsibility and communication. You’ll also participate in a game of “assassin,” where you’ll be eliminated by Josie early, all because you fell for a trick. The summer will be highlighted by the DM Senior Circuit, where you’ll drop immense amounts of time. Unfortunately, that’ll be your last good meet for a while.
Junior Year
Ah Junior Year, having the reputation of being the most difficult year in high school. That will prove true for you, however not in the way that you think. Academically junior year was still harder than sophomore year. You’ll adjust pretty well to the workload, but it still will come with its challenges. Your first AP English class, AP Lit, will be pretty fun. Additionally, your work at the Roundup will increase, and you’ll struggle to keep up, but will still manage.
Your struggles, while not coming academically, will come in the form of poor mental health. This will stem in part from your lack of success in swimming. That summer your championship meet didn’t go as well as you had hoped, but you put that aside and focus on the high school season ahead. By this point, you’re still an optimistic fellow, so naturally shaking one bad meet off is pretty easy. Your optimism, however, will be continually tested.
It’s during this time things really become hard. The combination of an increased workload and frustration from swimming will take its toll on your mental health. These mental health struggles will really start to impact your relationships. A particular incident with your club team will make this worse as well. You’ll feel like you have no one around you, you’ll question whether you’re in the right place, and you’ll start to doubt everything you’ve accomplished.
Your mental struggles will force you to lean on your faith, and there will be people who will help you do that. That year a couple of Jesuits will come to campus, their names are Fr. Polce and Fr. Deutsch. Both of these priests will be instrumental to getting you through your struggles. They’ll be available to hear your confession as well as just talk. In addition, you’ll find community as you start to regularly attend Religious Rangers meetings. This group of boys will give you support and a place to share your faith.
It will be a hard year for you, no doubt. Things will get really bad as the year goes on and will ultimately culminate in your most disappointing state at Jesuit. But through it all, there will still be two people that love and support you: mom and dad. You won’t realize it at the time, but mom and dad were always there for you. They were the first ones to hug you when you wanted to cry, the first one to tell you to keep going, and the first ones to show you that they cared. Cherish them during these next four years.
Things aren’t always down this year. The spring will prove it. In April, you’ll go on Junior Kairos, probably your most important experience at Jesuit. A couple weeks later, John Carroll (remember that random Jesuit school you met at that college fair) will offer you an official visit. That visit you’ll feel the most consolation from God you have ever felt. Junior year was hard, but it was fulfilling.
The end of Junior year will give you great excitement heading into your final year at Jesuit. You’ll be named the Managing Editor of the newspaper you’ve spent a long time working for. You’ll continue your role as Outreach Coordinator at Rangers for Life. Most importantly though, your teammates and brothers at Jesuit Swimming and Diving will nominate you to become their captain. These leadership positions will be both a great experience, but also a great challenge.
Senior Year
Senior year, we’ll call it the year of lessons. These lessons can be summed up in one word: love.
The captain position you were nominated for will turn out to be harder than you think. Leadership is not just about a title, but it’s about getting to know the people that you’re leading on an intimate level. This one freshman, initially butted heads with you at the beginning of the year. However, after one chance interaction, one deep conversation, you’ll understand him and eventually, he’ll become one of your good friends.
Leadership, while hard, won’t come without its support. For starters, Coach Doug and Coach Meagher will always back up your plans. Remember Natalie? That one girl who didn’t like you freshmen year. Well, you two will become really close friends. She’ll help you rally Jesuit and Ursuline for pre-meet team meetings, help plan “Jursuline” team-bonding games, and overall become one of your closest supporters. There’ll also be Bella, Clare, and Emma who will become good friends of yours and eventually will come to your signing day. There’s also Mrs. Rameriez, who’ll be your art teacher first semester. Her joy every class will consistently make your day.
Speaking of college recruiting, things will finally start to come to a close. In October, you’ll take your final visit. You were very excited about this school, but unfortunately, they’ll let you down. However, it will solidify your desire to attend John Carroll. After giving it much thought, you’ll both verbally and officially commit in December. It will be one of the greatest moments of your life.
The end of the swim season will, just like senior year as a whole, bring many hard lessons. It will start with excitement as the team three-peat as districts champions. A snowstorm that year will move the meet home, meaning you’ll get to do it in front of an electric home crowd. Regionals will result in another championship, and you’ll think things are going well. But then state will happen. After state, you’ll probably feel the lowest you’ve felt during your time at Jesuit. Swimming, which was once you passion, will suddenly lose its luster. You’ll feel betrayed. Swimming will lose its sense of purpose because the team, who gave you that purpose, suddenly left you. You’ll feel your worst. Your mental health will tank once again, and it’ll take a lot to bring you back.
The big lesson that came from state won’t really settle in until two months later. You’ll have multiple good conversations, but you’ll eventually realize you’ll have to move on. Moreover, you’ll realize one big truth: love requires forgiveness. Love will not always be exciting, but it is most often hard. This is why forgiveness and humility are so important, to learn and to move on from the mistakes you will make. This will all culminate at Kairos: which this time you will lead. On Kairos, you’ll get a chance to offer that forgiveness and get a chance to help repair those broken relationships.
Like in previous years, that spring will be one to remember. In addition to Kairos, one of the biggest highlights will be seeing your friend JJ (remember him?) get baptized during the Easter Vigil. Additionally, another friend will tell you about his intent to be confirmed. These moments are some of your most joyous here.
I want to conclude this letter with this: never forget to love. As you journey through Jesuit, show love to everyone you meet, even those who hurt you. But also know, there will be many people who show you love. Never forget to thank them, as you will not be able to make it without their support.
With love,
Sebastian Suwanda ’26
Thank you Jesuit, for four years of love, lessons, and tremendous experiences.
Cover Photo Credit: Don Chamblee Photography
