Yes, dear readers, I have
once again procrastinated writing. I don’t forget about you all; this blog is
always at the back of my mind whenever I discover something new or think of
great advice to share with my readers. But it is true that time really
flies and oftentimes my blog has been shoved to the side in favor of being with
the real live people in my life who make things great. And I won’t apologize
for that – if there has been one thing I learned this summer, it is that
face-to-face time with the people you care about matters more than anything
else in the world.
But now, unbelievably, it
is fall. I have lived in my new apartment for a month and a half, and I have
lived in the great city of Philadelphia for five months. I think one of the
reasons I have put off blogging so long is because I feel like my life right now
is a dream. Obviously, there are bad days and stressful days, but I can say
with all honesty that I think my life right now is great. I am living in a city
that I’ve always had kind of a romantic notion about – stemming from my high
school regatta days and continuing through racing here during my collegiate
years and the summers in between. I am a year-round member of Penn A.C., where
I share a dock and a locker room with former Olympians. Former Olympians who
say “hi” to me when I launch my boat as they are docking (and it takes every
ounce of self control to not geek out). I have great teammates. I have a job at
Drexel University where I have awesome co-workers. I teach classes at Rowzone
Manayunk where I get PAID to make erg workouts and motivate clients through
them. My new apartment is amazing – we don’t have a lot of furniture or fancy
things, but it is finally a place that I can unpack all of my belongings
without knowing I have to repack and move them eight months later. I feel
like I can finally settle myself in and discover who I am and what I want from
life without all the chaos. I feel more focused than ever, even though most of
the time I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off just trying to
make it through the day.
At school, I was always
told that rowing after college was way harder to manage. I assumed this was in
reference to the time commitment of a full time job and a full training
schedule. Personally, I think this is the least hard part of rowing now. I get
up, I go rowing, I go to work, I go rowing, I go to bed. To me, this is simple.
I’ve woken up before 5:30am and gone to bed before 10pm since I was
14. It’s the way I work well and it probably won’t ever change.
One of the hardest parts
to adjust to is the volume of training. In the past month, I have battled
two fevers, multiple cold sores and been so sick that I missed my first on the
water practice in over a year just because my body is adjusting to the load.
But I would have to say that the harder part is explaining myself to people. In
college it is acceptable to bend over backwards for your sport, because most
people assume you’re getting a scholarship for it (in my case, that was still
wrong). In real life, people are split into two camps. The first camp are the
people who think that rowing is a “sport and social” club; that I go a couple
times a week and it’s a grand old time. These people don’t understand that
practice is mandatory and think that I skip Happy Hour because I’m antisocial.
Trust me, when it’s pouring and freezing and all the muscles I didn’t know I
had are burning, I wish I was eating nachos and drinking margaritas. Then there
is the other camp of people who just think that I am crazy. They see how much
time I put in at the boathouse and they wonder what kind of person would put so
much energy into something that doesn’t involve a paycheck.
And I don’t even know if I
could verbalize why I do it. Words can’t justify the way I feel on the good
days. The 5 a.m. launch in complete darkness with perfect water where I am the
only person on the river for an hour; feeling so invincible and realizing that
to anyone passing by that I am just two blinking lights gliding across the
surface of the water. The Friday night row in rain so hard and so cold it
takes my breath and my vision away and all I can do is feel my muscles continue
to take each stroke as I wait for the downpour to stop. The feeling of freedom
on the last hard stroke of a Saturday practice with the knowledge that I don’t
have to begin to beat myself up again until Monday morning. Crossing a race
finish line knowing that I gave it 110% of my best effort and no matter what
the results say, I will be happy with that knowledge. And the fact that I
never, ever have trouble falling asleep.
There are so many days that
I wish I could attach a Go Pro camera to my head so that I could replay my day
to my coworkers and friends to say, “See this is what I do; this is my way of
life”. But it’s not something that can be explained. I just hope that
those who don’t understand know that what I do makes me truly happy and
accomplished – a feeling that can’t be found through socialized drinking,
retail therapy or any of the other “grown up” coping mechanisms out there. If
someone had asked me in March if I thought I was going to still be rowing at
this point in my life, I would have probably told them no. But I am and it is
the best choice I have ever made.
