Life After Sports: Victory Lap

Hello my sweet friends & welcome to my new blog series, Life After Sports.

This series is very near & dear to me. Life after sports is weird, hard, lonely, confusing, but ultimately, so good. It seems to me that the biggest question that lingers over newly graduated/soon-to-be retired athletes is a pretty common and simple one. When I am no longer considered an athlete, what/who am I? Surprise people!! You are still you. You are still a wonderful accumulation of all your previous experiences, new aspirations, and everything that makes you so beautifully, you.

I feel that the most appropriate topic to start this series off with is writing about the one & only #VictoryLap. Never heard of it? Well, you’re about too. Buckle up those bootstraps & leave your predisposed notions at the door, we are going in.

Victory Lap.

Oh, the dreaded fifth year. This highly disliked (yet commonly occurring) circumstance is one that many student-athletes, and students in general, face. Despite its commonality in today’s society, I think there can be a weird stigma around it. Let me try and explain what I mean with an example. Being a fifth-year kind of feels like you are that guy at a party that at the end of the night just doesn’t get the hint that it is time for him to go home. He was there all night, everything was great, but when the party finally comes to a close, he lingers a bit longer than he should. Basically, you feel, well I feel, out of place.

So, what really is this fifth year that I speak of? If I could sum it up in one sentence, I would say that it is this funny in-between year where you feel a little too old to be in college, yet a little too young and unsure to be in the real-life adult world. Writing about this current time in my life is hard. I feel a little stuck, a little sad, and very ready for what is to come next. Yet at the same time, I can’t imagine how life would be if I was actually onto that next stage & didn’t have this fifth year to continue to grow and prepare. Confusing, I know.

If you were not already aware, I was a D1 college volleyball player for 4 years. My career just recently ended in November of 2018. Pretty wild to think that in the blink of an eye, it was all just over. My life, relationships, sleep, exercise, eating habits, etc. all revolved around a sport that I had been playing since I was 9 years old. To clarify, that is 13 YEARS. 13 years of practice, lessons, workouts, heartache, triumph, new teams, missed opportunities, incredible victories, and just about every other feeling/emotion/thought under the sun.

Sports were my identity. Sports brought me my community. Sports made me feel important. With 100% certainty I can say that sports shaped me into the person I am today, in both good & bad ways.

If you were also not aware, I am on the five-year plan for college. This is my first fall semester ever without volleyball. No more early morning weights, no more 3-hour practices, no more long weekends filled with bus-rides, kneepads, and achy joints. Classes have started, volleyball season is in full swing, and I am no longer a part of it. Being back on my college campus this fall, no longer an athlete but very-much-so a student, hit me in a way that I was not prepared for. I am sad, damnit.

I knew being back at school would be hard. I knew I would miss my roomies, my boyfriend, and the humans that had graduated and moved on, but the feeling of loss in relation to volleyball was one I had not mentally prepared for. It’s funny, I was kind of ready for my career to be over by the time my senior season rolled around. I was tired, emotionally & physically, and felt like I had given so much of myself to a sport for so long, that there wasn’t much left to give. I was ready for a new adventure & a new identity outside the realm of sports. Of course, I cried like a baby the moment we lost our last game and my collegiate career was no more, but I was also filled with this immense sense of relief. The relief was quickly paired with a fresh sense of guilt, confusion, excitement, and basically every other human emotion that comes with loss. And then came Thanksgiving break, followed quickly by Christmas break, and just like that spring semester started and I was feeling fresh-eyed and okay. The semester was going to be a busy, all my OG humans were still around, everything really felt like sunshine and rainbows. I did all that I could to embrace my life post-athletics. This included getting two jobs, taking weekend trips, and training for a half-marathon simply because I could. I over-booked and over-worked myself, totally by choice, because I was so used to having a busy schedule. I can’t emphasize this point enough, being a college athlete is a full-time job. 40+ hours of your week are dedicated to practice, games, workouts, volunteering, events, etc., and that time estimate doesn’t even include class and schoolwork. I had nothing but time & energy to burn. And that I did.

This feeling & need to do as much as I physically could to “catch-up” carried over into the summer big time. Preparing for season had normally been the main focus of my summer. All of a sudden, I had free time & a lengthy break to explore every new area of interest I had not had time to dive into previously. I could say yes to every opportunity that presented itself, without fear of volleyball conflicting. And by god did I say yes, a lot. Literally guys, it was like I had a mechanism in my brain that inhibited me from saying no. I worked as a QA Tech in a hospital at night, and spent my weekday mornings interning, volunteering, and shadowing in anything that sounded cool/applied to my field of study. I traveled almost every weekend and was damn lucky to do so. I made this blog, a project I had been putting off for a long time and did a billion other things that made me happy and fulfilled. The wonderful chaos I had created around me made it so that I literally never had time to face my feelings about having to go back to Cape in the Fall. I didn’t even come back to school until the night before classes started. Avoidance & denial tactics were in full effect.

And now, without any mental preparation, I stand before you in my second week of my last year of undergraduate studies. The first week was REALLY fun. I cried a lot, I woke up on more than one occasion having no idea where I was, and I threw a handful of really sad pity parties. And then Thursday rolled around and I left Cape for a weekend trip to Washington, DC. I literally only lasted 4 days at school before my escapism kicked in. Denial makes me smile!! (JK, kinda). But, all jokes aside, the second week has been better. Still uncomfy, but better. I am easing into my new normal. While I am not happy about my current situation, I also cannot change it. All that I can control is how I react to it. Stimulus + Reaction = Outcome, right? I choose to control my reaction. I chose to find my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I still have humans that love my dearly, friends at school that I can count on at a moment’s notice, and a handful of others that are in the exact same boat I am in. I have a fifth year of college because I made the hard decision to move out of a major that no longer served me, and into one that truly sparks my passion. Dietetics is cool y’all. It is science, nutrition, counseling, cooking, management, entrepreneurship and a billion other little things all rolled into one. It is perfect for someone like me that wants to try everything and do everything. While some classes spark less joy than others, I can’t say that there has been any part of this major that I have not at least semi-enjoyed. I am excited about my future as a dietitian, and though I have no idea what realm I would like to work in, it is cool to know that I am not limited to just one thing. I can be a sports RD, eating disorder RD, private practice RD, culinary RD, hell I could be just about anything I want to be. This is a new feeling for me. I am a big-time future-tripper was never really able see myself in any particular profession down the road. Now, the options are limitless with my (future) credentials as an RDN.

This fifth year will be challenging. I will have times of discomfort, feelings of sadness, and have to work really hard to be happy. But by the end of it, when I finally get to walk across that stage and be handed my hard-earned diploma, I want to be able to say that I allowed myself to be fully present in the ebbs & flows that the year brought me. I am no longer an athlete, but I will always be me. I am an intelligent, hard-working young woman with goals & dreams. I am so much more than any box I have been placed into, & so are you.

No matter the trial you are facing, allow yourself to be present in and fully experience the moment. Life is short, happiness is important, and no two people’s experiences will ever be the same. I am a fifth-year college student working to be okay with being a fifth-year college student. If you are a fellow fifth year, or just someone feeling not quite sure about where they fit in in life, I hope this blog helps make you feel a little less alone in your journey. Feel free to reach out to me. I am always here & think that it is incredibly important to lean on a community that understands and resonates with you.

I am excited to continue sharing all that comes with life after sports. You got this. We got this. Everything is going to be just peachy, promise.

XOXO,

Mads