Back in the Boat

Here’s the deal: after a break from rowing last semester to focus on other interests and take time for myself, I’ve decided to return to the team. As rowing is not only a huge part of my life in college but also significant component of my fitness journey as a whole, I wanted to write about that decision and my thought process as I made it, because it’s a pretty big one!

 When I wrote the first draft of this post, I spent pages [and I seriously mean pages] cataloguing my grievances with rowing and my team that brought me to the place that I was in March: resentful, exhausted, and jaded. My last few semesters rowing were challenging in many ways, not only physically but also mentally and emotionally. In writing about that time, I rehashed some difficult points in my rowing career. I felt those frustrations all over again and got myself worked up about everything that went wrong, from things other people did to those I did and those that seemed to just happen, all converging to push me to the breaking point at which I stepped away from a team that had once been the most important thing in the world to me.

 I realize now that I don’t actually need to rehash every piece of that journey for you, because it can be summed up pretty concisely in one sentence: I was bitter and I quit. Like I’ve said, rowing is a challenging sport with a particularly difficult team dynamic, and I had thrown myself into it full tilt. When I first moved up to the varsity squad at the beginning of my sophomore year, I began to develop an all-or-nothing attitude towards rowing. If I couldn’t be the best, I didn’t want to do it; if I couldn’t fully commit to all of the practices and even extra workouts, I didn’t want to do it. This attitude, I think, caused the extreme resentment towards the team that I felt in my last semester.

 Said mindset can’t be attributed to anyone but myself—it’s nobody’s “fault” but my own. I let myself grow distant from other things I enjoyed and needed [other clubs and interests, school, time for myself] to throw all of my time and energy, both mental and physical, into rowing. I imagine that works for some, maybe even many, people on my team, but it did not work for me. When things didn’t go my way with rowing, I felt like I had nothing else to fall back on, no other identity to embrace. I’d let pretty much all of my other commitments fall away, so rowing was really all I did. That’s part of the reason that it took me so long to quit, even though I hadn’t been enjoying it for a while—I didn’t know who I would be without it [this sounds like a bad romantic relationship! Rowing and I weren’t growing together, we were holding each other back...].

 Finding my love of running is what initially empowered me to quit rowing. I had discovered a new interest that felt extremely personal to me and gave me another facet of identity beyond just rowing. I had at least one other “thing,” it seemed. When I stopped rowing, I was also able to focus more on school and get excited about my honors thesis, to devote time to myself, and to my writing—working on this blog [something I really truly love doing!] and otherwise. Having taken the time to reconnect with those important aspects of my life, I feel much more confident in the self that I’ve built. I feel like a whole person, one not defined by one thing, but by a variety of passions and pursuits that I genuinely care so much about.

 So, this discussion of the benefits of quitting finished, you might be wondering why I would go back at all. I do stand by my decision to leave the team this past semester, and I think it was a really smart choice for me at the time. However, given that space and some necessary distance to process my years of rowing, I realized that even as I felt angry and frustrated with my team and myself in terms of rowing, I still carried a lasting impression of something valuable in this sport.

 I remember the first day that I felt that magic in the boat, the first day that I felt a smooth row—it felt like we were flying, moving in unison, making the boat glide over the water as the sun came down over the Chickahominy and we rowed into the creek to head home. It was during novice year, and since then I’ve had many better rows and realized that what I thought felt amazing then might not feel so great now, but in that moment, I’d never experienced better rowing. That feeling when it does go well, those fleeting moments of reaching towards perfection, those are what pull me back towards the water.

 By taking time to separate myself from the immediate frustrations of the team, I was able to look back and appreciate all the things I did love about the rowing that had been clouded by my general ill feelings towards the program. I missed seeing my friends who were still involved with it so often, I missed the environment of a group of women pushing each other to excel and motivating each other to be active. I missed seeing the sunset from the boat out on the Chickahominy River, and even seeing the stars in the morning when we would get up for practice at five in the morning. I even missed some things that I thought I hated—the exhausted but contented feeling of breaking a personal record after a painful sprint, the joy of crossing the finish line and knowing you left everything you had on the racecourse.

 I want to reconnect with rowing in a way that will let me fall back in love with the sport. The pure, unadulterated love for it that I felt freshman year has been lost, but I want to find it again. I’m going back to rowing because it was a huge part of my life for a long time, and I think that chapter deserves a better ending than “I was bitter and overwhelmed, so I quit.” I want to be able to look back on these four years and remember rowing as, yes, something challenging and frustrating and sometimes infuriating, but also as something beautiful and awe-inspiring that holds a special place in my heart.

 Having taken the time to prioritize other important aspects of my life, I feel confident and ready to go back to the team, but this time I am going to do it differently. There are people on my team that want to devote all of their time and energy to getting better, to working towards winning, but I am not one of them. I want to rejoin this team as someone who will put in time and work when I can and prioritize it when I have the chance to, but will not exclusively prioritize it first, will not let it infringe on other important aspects of my life, will not buy into a team culture that sometimes promotes doing these things. I’m just going to do it my way, in the best way that I can.

 I am going to work hard and be all-there when I am at practice or races, and when I’m not, I will not be focusing on rowing. I am going to try not to focus on boat placement, and just row in whatever seat is given to me happily and with a positive mindset. I don’t expect, honestly, to be able to go to every practice, because I have other commitments—jobs, class, etc. I already know I’m missing a regatta this fall because I decided to run a half marathon on that weekend before knowing the regatta schedule. I’m not letting that stress me out. I’m just committing in a way that’s healthy for me, nothing more and nothing less.

 When I initially joined the team three years [ok wow where has my time in college gone?], it was to have fun, stay active, and make friends in college. Those are the only reasons. I didn’t join because I wanted to win or to spend all of my time rowing. In the past years, however, I drifted from my original priorities and lost some of myself to a team that was consuming my time, money, and towards the end, happiness. But like I said, that fault is mine. I let rowing eat at me and frustrate me and fill me with resentment and bitterness. By reclaiming my involvement with the team and participating in a more flexible way, however, I hope to get back to that original state of happiness and fulfillment that the team once gave me. Obviously, we’ll see how all of these ideals pan out once I’m back in the environment that I previously felt the need to remove myself from. It’s not a given that it’ll be a good experience, but I think it’s worth taking another stab at. For all that rowing has given me, it deserves a place as in my life as a good memory, and I want to end it on a positive note.

 So, wish me luck! Hopefully I’ll be able to grasp those happy rowing feels again—I’ll keep you guys updated on my plan to achieve balance in my life in a way that also includes rowing. I think it’s a good goal!