The End of an Era

Imagine something you've always done- something you committed to, sacrificed for, and cried over.  It's what you identified with, and half the people you know you met through this one thing.  Sometimes it seems like your life revolves around it- for good or bad.

It's shaped who you are, how you see the world.  You can't outgrow it, even when you stop doing it.  Because you can never just leave-it's a community that remembers you long after you try to go.  It's a lifestyle that you can't forget. 

Volleyball.

Jo and I blocking.  She's still recruitable ;)

SDVBC 17-1, in case you were wondering

Pretty corny, huh?

But I'm finally doing it, finally quitting.  I always told myself I would, but this time I know I am because the reason is a "shouldn't" but a "can't".  Too many other commitments, and I'm just not brave enough to risk it.  Not even for something I think I love.  College, you know?

I'm not even going to try to explain to you my reasons.  But know that they're solid, and that I had to choose between two paths.  The choice itself was simple-I had no future in volleyball.  It was something I enjoyed, and it couldn't give me anything more than health, friends, and lessons in discipline and patience. 

But it was easy to choose the other option.  Not so easy to live with it.

The movements I practiced so diligently, the muscles I so carefully trained are next to meaningless now.  It doesn't matter now how high I can (or can't) jump, how quickly I can react to the ball. 

What ball? It'll never be the same.

The words I need aren't where I thought they would be.  I can't express how like a dance the blocking footwork was, as we traveling along the net during our warmup, how our outstretched arms stretched above the tape and the veins in my wrists looked when they crooked over the top.  They looked pretty weird, bluey and all.

Even messing around on the beach or in open gyms, it'll never be the same.  That sense of urgency, or purpose, and of team will never again exist.  That's what I'll miss most of all.

But I suspect what ties me to a sport I'm too darn short for isn't any of that.  I started playing when I was around 12, just before a noticeable dip in the road.  Sometimes I would bring my problems with me onto the court, but they never left with me.  The ball would smash against the lines I scored into my arm, until I learned to stop putting them there.  Then they found their way onto other places.  Better to wear your scars on your skin than your heart, I think. 

Volleyball wasn't what helped me get better.  But it was there.  That's how these things are.  Sometimes just being there is enough to help. 

Watch for my daughter in the olympics 22 years from now.

Haha.