When she was 8 years old, Lauren Neidigh would lie by the pool and stare into the sky.
She was supposed to be swimming, but clouds captured her imagination a whole lot more than the pool did.
That wouldn’t last long. By 12, she participated in a swim camp at the University of Florida, realized she was good, and started dreaming about becoming a Division I swimmer.
But her imagination never left, and Lauren’s mind never really left the clouds. At least, maybe, until last year.
For a long time, Lauren had something of a running joke with her sister, Ashley. It was about a girl named Martha.
She would tell Ashley stories of Martha, her girlfriend. Martha was a cat lady — with, count ’em, six feline friends — and taught karate.
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“We always used to joke about that,” said Ashley, a swimmer at Auburn. “We would laugh, and I would ask, ‘Is Martha real?’”
No, she isn’t, Lauren would say.
Recently, Martha’s name came up again. About a year ago, in the midst of a text conversation with Ashley, Lauren bluntly broke some news to her younger sister.
“Ashley,” she said, “I’m gay.
“I know that doesn’t bother you. I just need to tell someone.”
Ashley, of course, asked about Martha again.
Is she real?
• • •
Lauren was always off on her own.
It’s how she became a talented enough swimmer to earn earn scholarships to both Florida and Arizona — where she’s now a senior — and participate in Olympic trials, where she swam a personal best in the 400-meter individual medley. She was willing to be off on her own, perfecting her craft.
Socially, she was quiet, maybe a little awkward.
“She would play by herself,” said her mother, Joni, “and she liked make-believe.”
When Lauren was a child, she and her friends would play tetherball. It would be a competition, so if you lost, you were out. Lauren was often among the first players eliminated.
One day, she came home, took the Neidighs’ basketball hoop down, built her own tetherball court, and began practicing. Every day.
She became so good that she eventually started beating everyone.
“She’s got a lot of determination and she’s persistent,” her mom said. “She was just willing to commit herself to it. And in the pool, I think she found it comforting. It helped her. It helped her deal with the stress.”
Particularly, the stress of feeling like an outsider.
Lauren remembers sitting alone in her room on weekends, her phone inundated with text messages, asking if she wanted to go out, to hang out.
She often declined.
Nobody knew she was a lesbian, and she didn’t want to give that away.
“If I had feelings for someone that I wasn’t supposed to,” she said, “I would just be weird with them in public, or actively avoid them so people didn’t know I had a crush on someone that was a girl.”
Fifteen months ago, Lauren decided it was time.
Time to admit to herself, her friends, her family, her teammates, and eventually, the public, who she was, how she was, and why she was what she was.
It was time to find her Martha. Or, at least, let Martha find her.
• • •
Lauren sat in the locker room before practice, her head between her knees, her teammates in front of her.
For a brief moment, time stopped. Lauren’s eyes welled up, and tears streamed down her face.
She didn’t know what would happen next.
After a few seconds, which felt like hundreds, Lauren heard a voice just in front of her.
“It’s OK, Lauren. We’re happy for you.”
That came from Bonnie Brandon, Arizona’s All-American backstroker.
“She just came out and said it,” said Elizabeth Pepper, a senior and one of Lauren’s best friends. “I know she was really scared. But we all supported her, told her it was fine, gave her a huge hug, and then went out to practice.
“It wasn’t entirely shocking, and we didn’t think any differently of her.”
Lauren has a reputation for being to the point — blunt, even. That didn’t change when it was time to share her news.
First, she told her cousin, whom Lauren calls her best friend. Then a close friend, Nick, who’s also gay. Then came Ashley, her sister, and Josh, her brother. When it came to her teammates, she told Margo Geer — the ex-Wildcat freestyle star — and Pepper first, then called a meeting before practice the next day.
Everybody responded the same way — “Lauren, we love you, and this doesn’t change anything.”
Lauren told both her parents via text message.
“She just basically said, ‘Mom, I’m gay,’” Joni said.
A few months later, Lauren came out publicly by writing an article for OutSports.com; she has since written two more.
“I didn’t really know when I was gonna do it,” Lauren said, “I just kinda did it one day. There was a moment where I was like, ‘I’m ready now.’ But there was nothing leading up to it. I woke up one morning and was just like, ‘Let’s do this already’.”
• • •
Growing up in Orange Park, Florida, Lauren always dreamed of swimming for the Florida Gators. It was an idea birthed when she first discovered she was a good swimmer, at 12 years old, at that swim camp.
And that’s what she did. But her childhood dream wasn’t meant to be.
After her sophomore year, Lauren didn’t like where she was. She knew she eventually wanted to come out, and Florida didn’t feel like the environment where she would feel comfortable doing so. When she decided to transfer, she looked at Indiana, Tennessee, Florida Gulf Coast, Michigan and Arizona.
She chose Arizona. This would be the place where she finally came out.
“The team’s close, even though they’re all very different people,” Lauren said. “It was a small team, and everyone gets to know everybody.”
That makes Rick DeMont, UA’s head coach, happy.
“Well, that’s how it should be,” DeMont said. “I’m glad she liked the environment we had in order to do that, because it means a lot to me to have it like that. Nobody cares what their orientation is. So I think for her it was monumental, and was just a big stepping stone and a hard step to take for her, so I commend her on that. It’s probably something that needed to be done.”
Now Lauren is out in the community, trying to make the whole process of coming out easier for girls like her.
Lauren, it seems, is no longer an outcast.
“It was really impressive to watch it evolve from her making shapes out of clouds on her back — and she’s not a backstroker — to becoming someone who achieved going to the Olympic trials,” said her mother.
“It was quite amazing to watch, and I’m excited about seeing what she’ll be able to do for herself now, and for other people.”
Lauren will graduate in May, and has plans to attend grad school for criminology or criminal justice. She eventually wants to work for a police department, or maybe even the FBI.
That’s the next step. Lauren has already taken the hardest one.
“I just kinda felt like I would never meet the right person if I wasn’t able to be the best version of myself for that person,” Lauren said. “Someday I wanna have a family, and why not start now?
“To start making myself better, start to make the world a better place for her; who I don’t know yet.”
Maybe that person’s name will be Martha.
