Reflection

Quote of the day: “Friendship, love, health, energy, enthusiasm, and joy are the things that make life worth living and exploring.” —Denise Austin; fitness instructor, columnist

It has been a week since my last post. This isn’t neglect, but a reflection of what my schedule has been like since then. I was immersed in March Madness on every level. We hosted the “Sweet Sixteen” and “Elite Eight” games, which is a huge undertaking. The amount of paid staff, volunteer staff, media members, coordination, and communication that’s required to pull off such an event is tremendous. Even though our office had been preparing for months for this event, our official duties began Tuesday evening and concluded on Saturday evening, which technically led into the early hours on Sunday.

It was a lot of fun. I’ve always been a fan of changing routine and scenery, both of which I was able to do last week. My hours were different, my surroundings were different and my responsibilities were different. Even though we all worked around the clock, I felt like the last four days were a vacation—a retreat from the monotony of everyday life. It was fantastic.

I love change. I love spontaneity. I love being up and about, moving all day. I love all of this because I don’t have any of it during my current workday. It’s obviously out of balance.

I learned so much about myself this week. There were some promising moments of reflection. I witnessed an energy in me come to life. It was my sport energy—my athlete self. Sure, I work in athletics every day, but this was different. I was fully immersed in the event. I wasn’t going to the dance studio at night, living between two worlds and selves. I was working in a sporting arena for hours on end, surrounded by thousands of sport folks. There was no energy in me coming to life beyond the athlete. She took over.

It was interesting. I had a lot of fun. I keep repeating that statement, which I believe is significant. Life as I knew it before the mid-college, identity crisis years was all about fun … the fun of sports. I lived and breathed sports. My complete identity was tied up in whatever sport I was playing. There was no separation. Life was the game and the game was life. This experience was all fine and good until life changed and sports changed, and it wasn’t good anymore.

I’ve been lost ever since.

As I write the statement above, I do not believe it literally. What I believe is that I haven’t had an identity since then, and that is what has been lost, but I’m not saying that I need one. It was comfortable living in the box of an athlete, until I wasn’t anymore and I was forced to wake up to life. Sports allowed me to nurture and release aggression, strength, competition, drive, focus and determination. It gave me purpose and became a channel for my passions.

Being involved in the event this week I felt like a teenager again—my old self. My disposition changed. I acted more aggressively, became fully vested in competition, was enamored by athletes, and wanted to hang out and party. It was like high school again.

And then I would go home, into my house where everything feels very different than that…where I feel very different than that.

Initially, back in the mid-college years, the loss of my identity created such panic, pain, confusion and despair that the only way out of the dark was for me to ask questions about the light. If I hadn’t asked, I would have been swallowed whole and physically gone forever.

Since then, my interests, passions, and expressions have changed and evolved. I began to nurture more of my feminine aspects and energies, which ties in my connection to dancing, drumming, writing, hiking, yoga, traveling, meditation, etc. In hopes to find some sense of self and purpose, I began to ask myself deeper questions about life, spirit and God. With these questions, answers, thoughts and prayers, combined with new interests, I am here, today, as is.

Taking another step back, two and a half years ago I was working for an incredible organization that promotes health, beauty and wellness. I loved the organization with all my heart, and still do today, but my intuition told me it was time to move on for various reasons. Within days of these feelings, I was offered the position I have today. A job in athletics…a position in the field I studied in college.

This was significant because I had never worked a day in this field of study—a decision I made when I was the 18-year-old student-athlete, pre identity crisis. So, I felt it was poetic justice for me to have been offered the position. My life had come full circle and I was incredibly curious to see if I would enjoy a career field that once spoke directly to me.

Within a few months, I knew it was not the path for me. I could vaguely see how it once was, but now, after this past week, I can clearly see how it would have been a perfect fit for the old Jill. I say that with respect for who I was then and who I am now.

People do change, if they want to. Not the core of them, but the layers to the core can change. They can be peeled away. I wanted to change. I needed to change. I needed change like a lost traveler in the desert needs water. I was desperate for it…for more understanding, depth and purpose. With this change came a change in me.

Today, the profession, the field, it doesn’t fit my lifestyle. It doesn’t fit me. It invokes part of myself that I enjoy, roughly 10%, but that’s not enough when another 90% of me wants to come to life and doesn’t have room. You can’t just put the layers back on once they have been peeled. You can try, but you suffer even more.

And that’s what I realized this week…Again, I enjoyed the immersion in the sport world this weekend. It was fun to bring to life an old self, but the fun came from it being temporary. I realized it also felt so good because it reminded me how “solid” my life once felt when I had an identity. When someone could ask me what I wanted to do/be and I could say “work in sports.” I used to feel so sure about everything back then. I used to feel so confident in who I was.

Until I wasn’t anymore.

Until what created my identity was no longer; and therefore, I was no longer. And the real suffering began.

Today, my identity, is solely internal. I’m not anything. I’m of everything.