I would love to make this a super up-beat and happy post about our win at Chicago, but suddently this week has become a much more complex mix of emotions for me. I'm so happy to say that this past weekend, the Ninjas went down to Naperville, Illinois to defend our championship title at the Chicago Invite and WE DID IT! We went 7-0 for the weekend, we had a lot of parents/family there to watch and support us, and we had almost our entire squad there working together beautifully the entire weekend. Coming back to reality and a week full of tests and papers and projects was hard, but riding that championship wave made it bearable, and seeing my girls every day at practice didn't hurt either.
Yesterday at around 9pm Liz and I were sitting in a cafe studying when the new USA Ultimate (preliminary) rankings were posted. We knew we would move up in the rankings since we had just won a tournament (and won all of our games), but I don't think anyone was prepared for us to jump 11 spots to 19th place! And as of now, we have 4 NORTH CENTRAL BIDS TO NATIONALS! At this time the team kind of flipped out, the group text went crazy, twitter feeds were blowing up, and facebook of course.... We are now a top 20 team! How nuts is that?? I am so so so so so so so proud of my team, how hard we've worked this season and how we've really come together to work towards our goals and become a tight-knit team and family. No matter how we do at Sections, Regions, if we make it to Nationals or not... I know we will push it hard through all of those tournaments and support each other and do our best. And that's all we can ask for! So that was kind of exciting! I don't think anyone could really concentrate on school work for the rest of the night!
But then when I came home I heard some sad news that my friend's little brother had died. I haven't actually talked to this friend in a long time, but we were neighbors growing up and we were good friends from kindergarten all the way into high school. This news hit me pretty hard, and I was just plain shocked for a while. It is obviously heartbreaking to lose any family member or loved one, a parent/grandparent, but for some reason it is always so much more tragic to lose a young person. All I could think of was how my friend must feel... or how I would feel in her place. I couldn't imagine it, and all I felt was overwhelming sadness for her and her family. I've never experienced the death of someone that close to me, and I don't know how I would respond. Although I've lost three of my grandparents, I think I was too young at the time to really understand...
All day today, my mind has kept going back to this. It made me at least slow down for a few minutes at a time and think about what I value and prioritize in my life, because it could be taken away in an instant. I (and I think many college students) tend to focus so strictly on school, working myself to exhaustion just for a deadline or a grade. My education is important to me, yes, but is it as important as being happy? How do I balance those things? Am I making the right choices to make sure I am living the life I want to live? Am I being honest with myself and with others as much as possible? And most importantly, am I surrounding myself with people who are supportive, people who I love and who love me in return? Do they know how important they are to me? Knowing how, as a fellow teammate so rightly put it, "shy and awkward" I am, I probably don't vocalize these things enough. Maybe I should try harder. Maybe they already know. I'm often reluctant to show my emotions and risk appearing vulnerable, but all these emotions are bottled up somewhere in here, and I wish I were better at letting myself open up and tell those people in my life just how much they mean to me. I hope they do know... but I think I'll make the effort to tell them anyway.
Yesterday at around 9pm Liz and I were sitting in a cafe studying when the new USA Ultimate (preliminary) rankings were posted. We knew we would move up in the rankings since we had just won a tournament (and won all of our games), but I don't think anyone was prepared for us to jump 11 spots to 19th place! And as of now, we have 4 NORTH CENTRAL BIDS TO NATIONALS! At this time the team kind of flipped out, the group text went crazy, twitter feeds were blowing up, and facebook of course.... We are now a top 20 team! How nuts is that?? I am so so so so so so so proud of my team, how hard we've worked this season and how we've really come together to work towards our goals and become a tight-knit team and family. No matter how we do at Sections, Regions, if we make it to Nationals or not... I know we will push it hard through all of those tournaments and support each other and do our best. And that's all we can ask for! So that was kind of exciting! I don't think anyone could really concentrate on school work for the rest of the night!
But then when I came home I heard some sad news that my friend's little brother had died. I haven't actually talked to this friend in a long time, but we were neighbors growing up and we were good friends from kindergarten all the way into high school. This news hit me pretty hard, and I was just plain shocked for a while. It is obviously heartbreaking to lose any family member or loved one, a parent/grandparent, but for some reason it is always so much more tragic to lose a young person. All I could think of was how my friend must feel... or how I would feel in her place. I couldn't imagine it, and all I felt was overwhelming sadness for her and her family. I've never experienced the death of someone that close to me, and I don't know how I would respond. Although I've lost three of my grandparents, I think I was too young at the time to really understand...
All day today, my mind has kept going back to this. It made me at least slow down for a few minutes at a time and think about what I value and prioritize in my life, because it could be taken away in an instant. I (and I think many college students) tend to focus so strictly on school, working myself to exhaustion just for a deadline or a grade. My education is important to me, yes, but is it as important as being happy? How do I balance those things? Am I making the right choices to make sure I am living the life I want to live? Am I being honest with myself and with others as much as possible? And most importantly, am I surrounding myself with people who are supportive, people who I love and who love me in return? Do they know how important they are to me? Knowing how, as a fellow teammate so rightly put it, "shy and awkward" I am, I probably don't vocalize these things enough. Maybe I should try harder. Maybe they already know. I'm often reluctant to show my emotions and risk appearing vulnerable, but all these emotions are bottled up somewhere in here, and I wish I were better at letting myself open up and tell those people in my life just how much they mean to me. I hope they do know... but I think I'll make the effort to tell them anyway.
brava
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