Can you still feel the butterflies?

Hello everyone, it's been a while since I've been here, for real. You all know that when I start off posts with a formal greeting like "Hello" it's usually not a good thing. But anyway. My last post about Slackjaw vs. Australia was my sad attempt at a return to the game, and I gotta say, it was pretty damn pathetic. The reason why I'm writing this is because after a long, long break from this blog, I've had a lot of time to think. My time in California and the week I've had away from it has given me a new perspective on a lot of things in my life. A lot of things have changed for me, in ways both measurable and immeasurable.

This is very hard for me to say, but I've thought about stepping away from the game of ultimate for a long time now. This is by no means a goodbye letter, so hear me out. Since maybe January of this past year, I've been thinking about quitting. I don't play because I'm good at it or because people perceive me to be good at ultimate, I play because I love it. If I quit everything that I ended up being shitty at, I'd literally have no hobbies other than sleeping and eating. But I've always said that the moment ultimate ceased to be fun for me, the moment my heart stopped being in it, I'd have to quit. I don't believe in doing things just to be doing them, I need to have my heart in it, 100%. For a while there, my heart wasn't in it. I was worried about school and torn up over my personal issues and overall just really, really fucking tired. I didn't have time for anything non-ultimate anymore. There were some friends that I would never see, and even my roommates said I was only ever around when I was passed out in bed. I was constantly at tournaments or working out or at practice. Even when I wasn't doing ultimate things, I was still with ultimate people, most of the time talking about ultimate or looking at ultimate things. I felt really ultimate-d out by the time Regionals was over.

Last night at summer league, I was playing popper in our zone offense. I think maybe it was LauraNelson who threw a floater to me, and I got way vertical for it. I had my left hand on the disc and shit was looking pretty glorious. But out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a green shirt (my team color is green) and so without thinking, I let go of the disc. I let go of the disc when I had it in my hand. Turnover. I smacked my forehead and ran on D. And that's when it hit me.

Not only did the turnover not really phase me, but I realized that I didn't care about the outcome of the game, either. I realized I didn't care about my team (no offense, Garadactyls) at all. I wanted nothing more than to lose that game as quickly as possible and to get the hell out of there. To not care about ultimate, even if it was just a summer league game, made me stop and think for a second. What if this is it? What if I'm burned out? I remember thinking to myself in May that I wasn't sure how I was going to do all that again. How can I continually give so much of myself to something, pour my heart out and beat my body and brain up over this, if in the end, I'm just going to feel as shitty as I did after Regionals? I wasn't sure that I had enough in me to put myself out there again, and I wasn't sure I was ready for another long, long season of work and bodily torture.

In the month I was out at Stanford, I didn't look at ultimate blogs and I didn't read anything ultimate-related. I didn't play ultimate other than to throw every other day or so. I didn't look at ultimate pictures, and I didn't allow myself to think about ultimate all the time. In fact, I found myself not really thinking about it at all. This past spring, I lost myself so deeply in ultimate, so deeply in trying to get to Nationals and making myself a better player that I forgot that life is also about growing as a person, not just as a player. I forgot that Joann Wong (awkward referring to yourself in the third person) is defined by more than ultimate. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that I love the sport any less or that it gives me any less pleasure, just that I've figured out that ultimate is something that I love to do, and it means a lot to me and is a huge part of my life, but it isn't everything about me.

When I got back to Chicago last week, I thought about how I was about to spend another four months away from Illinois Ultimate in China. What would it be like when I was away? Would I grow accustomed to not having practice and not having tournaments? Worse yet, would I actually enjoy a life like that? It certainly would be easier, in a lot of ways. I thought I'd let Motown Throwdown ease me back into the game. But on Saturday of Motown, when I was still torn up as fuck about leaving my friends at Stanford, I was ready to throw in the towel. I was ready to tell everyone that I was quitting and that I was driving home right away. No matter how hard I tried to laugh or how hard I tried to care, ultimate just wasn't fun for me that day. My body was aching, but more than anything, my heart was killing me. Standing on the line just didn't feel right, and I felt like I was cheating myself and my teammates. I felt like such a farce. But Sunday rolled around, and maybe it was Kale or maybe it was the prospect of going home that night or whatever, but it reminded me of what else ultimate is about for me.

I think about track practices when we've pushed each other and encouraged each other when our lungs are about to give out, and I think about and I think about how my teammates would stay up until ungodly hours listening to me cry about something inane, and I think about how my teammate would voluntary play a tournament on one hour of sleep so I wouldn't have to drive alone, and I know that I can't just walk away. I think about how much we've sacrificed for our team and for this one goal, and I know that I can't just walk away. I think about every Tuesday night I've spent with my teammates, being obnoxious at Zorba's or Firehaus, and then being even more obnoxious at McKinley, and I think about the car rides, the nights in hotels, the plane rides, and I think about how these are the only people I ever spend my time with and how little that bothers me and I know that I can't just walk away. I think about the pictures I have on my wall of the team, after tournament losses or tournament wins, and we're always smiling and laughing and making stupid faces, and looking at those pictures and remembering every little detail my mind can come up with about those tournaments and those days lets me know that I can't just walk away.

The day I walk away from the playing field and hang up my cleats will be a rough one. I don't know when that day will come, but hopefully it won't be here for a long time. There's a lot about ultimate that I don't know about, and possibly even more scary is that there's a lot about myself that I don't know about yet. I'm still learning and growing as a person, even if I've already spent two decades on this earth. I can honestly say that in my life, I've never been as happy as I've been these past few years. A big part of that is ultimate, and how it's helped me grow as a person. I'm more responsible, and I take better care of myself. I'm more outgoing (and that's saying a lot considering how painfully awkward I used to be), and I'm more open to everything and everyone. I'm more willing to admit when I've made a mistake and when I need help, and I'm more patient when it comes to helping others. I've become much better at managing my time and I've seen my work ethic improve by leaps and bounds. More than anything, I've found something that I love doing, and people that I love doing it with. Who I am today, this hilariously awkward, shameless, obnoxious, and absolutely ridiculous person, I've been all along. But ultimate helped me bring that person out, and I'm glad everyone knows who I really am now. I'm so so so happy being this person, for one of the first times in my life, and I'm just glad I don't need to pretend to be someone else now.

So thanks, Ultimate, for everything you've done for me. I know there will come a day when we'll have to part, but whenever that day comes, whether it's 40 years from now or 40 days from now, I'll be able to wave goodbye to you, smile, and know that I'm a better person for having known and loved you.

This is why I play ultimate:







"The amazing thing about the hard work, time, and effort that you put into a team is not how it pays off in the long run, in achieving your goals, but how it pays off immediately in the bonds that you create by sacrificing with your teammates. ... In fourteen years of playing ultimate I've gone to the track with many friends, I've strapped on my cleats at practice with a lot of teammates, I've rode to and from a tournament in a packed car, van, or airplane with more good people than I can name, and I probably won't have the opportunity to do it again with most of them. There are so few opportunities to be a part of a real team; for a practice, workout, or tournament have only one thing that exists; To escape relationships, job, homework, finances, for a short period of time. If all I had from the past fourteen years were practices, conditioning, roadtrips, and parties, not a single tournament game win, it would have all been worth it."
- Kyle Weisbrod