Trying out VB

I had always wanted to try a high school sport. I wanted to see what it was like to experience playing for your school. Going into sophomore year I wanted to try volleyball. There wasn’t necessarily a specific reason that I wanted to try it. But I knew that I was tall and had great hand-eye coordination so I figured why not give it a shot. I knew that I was obviously going to need practice. And I will admit it was extremely difficult from doing something that I knew like the back of my hand and was incredible at something that was completely new. I am not a fan of change. If I have a routine I stick to it because there's that stability there that is strangely comforting. So as you can probably guess, going into a sport that I was brand new to would be challenging mentally. I tried out for my high school’s volleyball team my sophomore year and didn’t make it. Luckily I didn’t expect myself to make it because I knew that was an unrealistic goal. I decided to try club volleyball in the winter through the spring. There was actually lots of trouble there that I did expect. First of all, the reason I even decided on trying a new sport was so that I could be involved with my high school and get that experience. Hence when I joined a club for volleyball I was everything but excited because I know how clubs work. I felt like a deer in headlights playing at Greenwich. I mean everyone clearly had so much more exposure to this sport. When I did make the team at Greenwich I felt so insecure every time I went to practice. I mean I went from 100 to 0 in a matter of 6 months. Luckily with synchro, even though the sport itself was burning me out I still had that community aspect holding on to me. I was very comfortable with my teammates, some of them were my best friends. The community was like one big family. But with volleyball not only was I lost in the sport but it was difficult meeting new people and trying to make friends. All my teammates knew each other in some type of way and I was always the odd one out. It didn’t feel great. Volleyball started to feel like a chore because nothing was keeping me attached to it. Towards the end of Spring, I hurt my wrist. Which was honestly a blessing in disguise. Because before the season had ended it left me with time to reflect on how the sport was actually affecting me. But that’s just it, it wasn’t. It wasn’t making me happy or sad. It was just something to do. Basically, it felt like a waste of time. I noticed that both times when I was unhappy with my sports, synchro, and volleyball when I was given time to reflect I was able to draw conclusions. A general lesson I learned through my sports journey was that when you are forced into a time to reflect, conclusions can be drawn. Both in synchro and volleyball when I found myself in forced isolation, clear and conscious decisions were able to be made.