Everyone has a sob story about falling from the pinnacle of fill-in-the-blank-sport glory to I-occasionally-use-the-treadmill-and-hav e-tiny-love handles.
Please indulge me while I expound on my own.
I, like many neurotic, hyper-competitive 8-year-olds in San Diego, started playing volleyball shortly after I learned cursive.
It was a life and death battle.
I was on every top club team. I transferred high schools after my sophomore year so I could play for the county’s best team. And I played at UCLA until I was eventually cut.
My 5-foot-3 frame was never conducive to total domination, and after the UCLA coach ended my dreams of making the national team, it was with extreme distress that I admitted it was over and joined the college newspaper staff instead.
I kept up with the sport by coaching, but when I moved to Chicago I decided it was time to start a new era in my life. I vowed that I would never play again because it was too painful to revisit my perceived failure.
That was more than two years ago and since then my athletic life has consisted of meandering by the lake and occasionally busting out my 10-pound dumbbell set to do some curls. I think shopping should count, too, because it requires a lot of walking.
Taking on a new persona as a non-athlete was a nice break. Without four-hour practices there was time for reading and hanging out with friends. (And drinking–a lot. Thus, the tiny love handles.)
Two weeks ago, though, on a whim I decided to interrupt this sedentary lifestyle and join a recreational indoor volleyball league.
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I was inspired by my best friend from college, Nate, who was recently in town for St. Patrick’s Day. Nate is one of those people who have, like, 5,000 hobbies. In addition to his day job at a movie studio, he takes Spanish classes, competes in triathlons and is learning to play the guitar.
Catching up with him made me feel guilty about my own extracurricular status, so I joined the volleyball team in an effort to diversify my declining repertoire.
Can I just tell you how absolutely nervous I was before my team’s first game?
It wasn’t because I signed up as an individual and was on my way to meet a group of strangers. I’m not shy.
No, I was horrified by the prospect of showing up in my kneepads only to realize I had lost the ability to move vertically.
On the morning of the game, I actually did some calisthenics in my apartment just to make sure I wouldn’t embarrass myself. I practiced diving, jumping and other volleyball techniques. From the look on my cat’s face, I knew it was ugly.
I wasn’t going to quit, though, so I showed up at the game anyway.
We got clobbered. The ball ricocheted off me a couple of times and once I accidentally spiked it with my elbow. It was a far cry from the NCAA days.
But it was the most fun I’ve had in ages.
Toward the end of my volleyball career, it stopped being fun. It just felt like pressure, and I didn’t think it would ever be fun again.
Once I started living life, though, I realized there is a lot more pressure than whether or not I made a team or won a championship. There’s the pressure to fall in love, find the right career, live in the right house in the right town, and keep the right friends.
That night volleyball was something simple again. Playing made me remember the successful person I’ve been, which somehow made me feel a lot better about the person I am becoming.
I may not be able to go back to the glory days, but at least for the moment I have achieved a zen-like inner peace.
And it could do something about those (tiny) love handles.
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