aHEAD IN THE GAME

The decision to play overseas was one I made rather lightly, which really isn’t like me. In every other aspect of life I take an almost painful amount of time to mull everything over and dwell on every little possibility. However, in this case, I was probably swayed by the excitement and encouragement of everyone around me. Every time I shared my plans to move abroad, I was met with overwhelming positivity. Looking back, at no point was I confronted with any of the challenges of being a professional athlete. At the time of my decision, I had already been a collegiate athlete for like 5 years and we’ve all heard the maxim “it’s like having two jobs.” I was lulled into a false sense of security. I thought because I had successfully navigated college I was in a lot of ways over-prepared for life as a professional athlete. I didn’t think there was anything left of myself to sacrifice for the sport. I had already given soccer 90% of me. What more could she want? Silly me, she took that extra 10, and another 5% I didn’t know I had.

In the process of hiring an agent, I was in communication with people who had placed other players overseas and believed that I had the ability to make the same move. Up to that point, I still had doubts a team would even want me. But taking that step to hire someone, having someone outside of myself actually making my dream happen. It was a crazy feeling. Truthfully, it was the last time I was truly happy, at least in the traditional sense. I was full of hope and joy for the future, the possibilities were truly endless. Once I was placed, once I knew I was going to Gdansk, and officially a professional athlete, soccer took that feeling from me. She took my happiness, or at least the stagnant type of happy I knew at the time.

In Relentless, Grover says “the minute you experience it, it’s already fading.” The day I became a professional athlete was the day my mindset shifted. I wasn’t hopeful anymore. I was hungry. There wasn’t joy anymore. I was burdened. I wasn’t competing against the eight or nine green 18 year olds coming in, wide eyed, naïve, and just trying to figure out how the world works. I was competing against seasoned vets, national team regulars. I was competing against the whole fuckin world. There are no NCAA rules in professional athletics, there’s no screening process. Everyone you can think of is your competition. I had high standards before, but now my last reps in college were a cute warm up. Everything had to be better, faster, stronger, and, even then, it was never enough. Constantly pushing yourself further and further is not a healthy way to live.  It cost me a lot. Injuring myself because my body couldn’t keep up with my mind, or hating myself for not being able to master a skill. It’s a lifestyle I wish I would’ve known about before I decided to become a professional athlete. As Grover says, “you never shake the uneasy feeling that you can’t ever be satisfied with your results; you always believe you could have done better and you stop at nothing to prove it.” The “never enough mindset” is voracious but it also contradicts itself. The things you at one point wanted to strive for are some of the things that you can’t have as a professional.

I wish I knew about the people I would lose or the relationships that would weaken. And not for the reasons everyone says. It’s not because they don’t understand the commitment or anything like that. I mean that happens too, but I wish someone would’ve told me the monster I would turn into because of this sport. I’m the reason I’ve lost so many friends. I choose not to go to parties, bars, hangouts because I have a match or training or because I’m exhausted from one of the two. Eventually the invitations stop coming. I’m the one who ends relationships because of the lifestyle. Not everyone is ok with moving countries on a whim or not knowing what continent they are going to live in the next year. I wish someone would’ve told me you’re going to meet some pretty amazing people that you could picture your life with just to have it stripped from you over and over again because you’re always going to choose your sport over someone’s potential. You lose the people you could’ve cared for and neglect the ones you do. Not always on purpose but that’s what the job requires.

I wish someone would’ve told me that you will begin to grieve “the could have beens” and “the should have beens.” I spend a lot of time on Instagram stalking old teammates, who I once shared so much with. Now we have nothing in common. I scroll through engagement announcements and pregnancy announcements wondering if I’ll ever get to make a similar declaration. I don’t even want that right now, or at all, but I see other people happy and I wonder if I’ll ever feel content like that. When your mindset is always telling you, you’re never enough it doesn’t just apply to your training; it begins to seep out of sport. You begin to feel like you have to compete in every aspect, even off the field, but you can’t. The more time and effort you commit to your sport, the less you can spend towards other things. “Your whole life is essentially dedicated to one goal, to the exclusion of everything else,” as Grover puts it. However, being aware of what you will likely never have during your playing career doesn’t make it easier to accept. The reality of being an athlete is forfeiting an aspect of your free will. I can’t just take a day off, I can’t just go on vacation. I can’t do the things normal people can do, so I can’t live the life normal people live. To be a professional athlete is to put almost your entire life on pause. I wish someone would’ve told me that the faster your career takes off, the farther you fall behind in other aspects that might’ve been important to you.

Soccer is a bitch. Becoming a professional athlete took almost everything I once valued from me. It took my mental health, my physical health, everything I thought I wanted for my future.

So honestly, I should quit right?

Haha no, what I thought I wanted and what I need right now they aren’t the same. What I need now is a challenge, I need something to go after, I’m too hyperactive for a cookie cutter life. That kind of predictability comes with its benefits; I’m not hating on it at all. But it’s not for me. Right now, I need the chaos. I need the toxicity. I need the competition. I need the pressure. I need my sport because it gives me all of that and a sense of accomplishment, although fleeting. I wish I would’ve known about the feeling in my gut, the “dull ache of your dark side” begging for the kind of intensity that sport brings. I just wish someone would’ve told me about this and that I would’ve truly understood it before I plunged into this world head first.

Many people say you put yourself through this kind of thing for the “love of the game.” Let me tell you it is absolute bullshit. I don’t love soccer more than my family, friends, even myself. And yet here I am. I gave up easy access to these people for this lifestyle. But it’s not about love, it’s about being “insatiable.” I do it because I want to push myself. I say I hate it but at the end of the day here I am, showing up…again. It has nothing even to do with soccer, that’s just the barometer I’ve chosen to measure my progress. It’s just about chasing the thrill, seeing what I can endure, how much better can I get, who can I embarrass, who can I beat, how much more can I do. It’s not about love of anything, like Grover said, it’s an addiction. He said success at a high level looks different than what we thought. He was right. I wasn’t aware of the sacrifices I would make to be where I am. Likely, there’s more to make that I don’t even know about. For now, soccer is the bitch that stole my mental and physical health, my social life, my free will. But I’m the bitch that let her do it, and the bitch that would do it all again if I could.