I didn’t always feel like I belonged.
Other women have had years to figure out what I’d compressed in about thirteen months. It feels like I’ve always had to play catch up since I rarely seem to know what I’m doing. Even now when I have passing privilege, which means that when people meet me they automatically assume I was assigned female at birth — even then, I’m still struggling to feel “normal” again.
Because there’s that girl inside me who never got to experience her childhood, and that always makes me feel lesser to just about everyone else, which is terrible, I know: I’m working it out in therapy I swear.
This is a story of me finally belonging to a team of women who accepted me without question, and having it all taken away far too soon.
No, I’m not over this past 2020 season. Not by a long shot. I know I should be moving on, but a part of me remains stubbornly attached, like those sticky yo-yo’s you got as prizes from the doctor’s office.
I’ve been having dreams of my team. They recur time and time again. It becomes clear that when I can’t be with my friends in the day, my subconscious compensates at night. When I’m alone (which I often am in COVID-19 times), my thoughts always drift to frisbee. Avoiding it is as futile as trying to outrun the moon at night .
I think the reason that I can’t get over this last year is because that was my first season being on an all-women team. For the first time ever, I felt like I wasn’t the outlier. At practices, I finally started feeling open with my teammates. I developed inside jokes with friends, and learned to be myself. I began putting Ultimate as my first priority, and embracing the sport which embraced me for me. Everything was going according to plan.
I never took anything for granted. While I’m still very much in grief (I seem to be vacillating between anger and denial nowadays), I regret nothing. I played my heart out. I laughed and cheered so hard that my throat was raw. I’ve spent all the time I could with beautiful people who I deeply love, and, at the end of the day, that’s all that ever really matters.
But, still, this all really really sucks.
My heart goes out to the Seniors — I can’t even imagine what it must be like to process grief so swiftly and suddenly. None of this was fair, and although we’re in a time where it’s so easy to count this lost season out in the face of peril and overwhelming stakes, it’s also valid to recognize just how TERRIBLE it all is.
But, hey, I’m here if you ever want to commiserate/sip wine over Zoom and cry — it’s kind of become my new aesthetic.
My legs are on fire, as if someone poured molten lava behind my calves and hamstrings. The exhaustion rolls over me like waves, nearly wiping me out every time. There’s this weird twinge in the back of my right shoulder which I can’t seem to work out no matter which angle I take.
Earlier that night, we’d just played a legendary game against UC Santa Cruz. Although my body heated up from overexertion after baking in the Southern Californian heat for four-and-a-half straight games, I found myself being cooled by the night air. My teammates and I cheered on the sidelines, trying to channel our energy into the seven on the field: every play sent excited chatter among the team and spectators. The observers in their bright orange added a layer of realness to the game, suddenly everything seemed so official (or, as “official” as it ever seems to get with ultimate).
I now sit in the back of that cramped sedan with four of my teammates. We listen to the radio and talk excitedly about how different that game felt from anything we’d ever played. Even though my brain can no longer English right now, the usual insecurity and self-doubt that accompanies my speech is inhibited. I find myself chattering endlessly with my friends — something that differed completely from the vans I’d been in while on NUT (though, I guess if you consider Kenneth Xuan trash-talking the teams we’d seen literally moments ago as conversation, then I guess I can concede the point).
Whenever I’m with Gung Ho, I no longer feel so alone. We look out for each other. We’re all excited to be there with one another.
I smile, as we continue our way to the Mexican place which would later render me useless for the UCSD game the following morning (seriously, pro tip: do NOT go for the spiciest menu option Saturday night of a tournament. Yikes.)
These are my people.
We jog through the streets of Evanston — the Bahá’í temple shrinks further and further away behind us, as Corinne and I talk rapid-fire in between breaths. Somehow, I’ve gotten even more out-of-shape than I was in-season, which is really saying something. As usual, our conversation steers towards Ultimate, the craziness of COVID-19, and our grim new reality.
For the thousandth time, I lament about how this year we could’ve gone to Nationals again — that although Michigan Flywheel is for sure an amazing and formidable team, I really think that we would’ve been an even match for them had Regionals progressed as planned. That all hurts to even think about now: an alternate present of what if’s which feels so close to our reality — a different timeline which plays on the back of everyone’s minds on a loop, as we continue to grieve what could’ve been.
Corinne wonders out loud how not having a series and a Spring season would impact the freshman. She muses that they probably aren’t as impacted by the sudden loss of season as the rest of us upperclassmen, and worries about what’ll happen if — when, as I keep reminding myself while I write this — all of this is over. She turns to me asking for what I make of all of this, with the implicit question: Will College Ultimate ever be the same after this?
I shake my head and shrug. Out of breath, I manage:
I don’t know.
