My people, you’re back! Welcome to preseason, athletes!
It’s wild going to my job and watching all the athletes start their season. I still feel like it should be me! I understand the flood of emotions and the complexity of feelings that come with the start of a season. It can be debilitating at times. It might be confusing, even.
But it’s also exciting?
Whether you are in the midst of your collegiate career or finding yourself in your very last season, my advice to you is this: This sport is merely a sport. Your purpose was never about playing the sport, but about the person who played. And that person is there with or without the game. Just look within, you’ve always been right there.
As an athlete myself, and surrounded by many other athletes, I think it is a common issue when the sports that ran our lives finally run out. I’m now several years removed from organized sports. I am having to learn what the fuck I actually want to do after 15 years of my life being ruled by the demands of my sports. I’m not saying sports are bad, that's not the point at all! I’m saying I was so hyper focused on my sports that I didn’t give little Elsie, the person I was away from sports, time to figure out her passions.
Now I’m 24 acting like I’m 5 again. I don’t have a schedule, I don’t have practice, and I don’t have my team. These are all things I was literally given, and I didn’t have to rely on myself to have them.
During this “adulting” phase of life, it was suggested that I should lean into the uncomfortable. And being the stubborn woman I am, I wasn’t going to do that until I had to. But I leaned in to the advice and the help that was given. I leaned into my failures to learn from them. I leaned into finding my passions again.
And you know flippen what?! I felt like I was living again! I was giggling for no reason. I was eating what I craved. I felt like I was young Elsie again, getting a chance to heal my inner child…..it’s work we all get to do! Get to workin’!
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