Saying Goodbye
Whew. I survived my first NSR weekend in Princeton. Really it was nothing since I wasn’t actually entered to race in this NSR, but the fact that it was canceled due to weather made it easier for just about everyone to make it through the weekend in one piece. This past week definitely took me for a ride though, physically and emotionally. Aside from the stress consuming me concerning my racing/not racing the single in NSR-1, I had some other things on my mind. My best friend on the team decided to quit this week. So along with the dichotomy of being allowed to row and not being allowed to row in the NSR comes a whole other ball of wax: electing not to row.
When I first moved to Princeton, I was skeptical about a lot of things. My ability to row, for one thing, as well as the Princeton community’s ability to drive, and the 90% summertime humidity. I was also extremely skeptical about the people I was going to meet in Princeton, and how I was going to fit in with them. Coming out of my collegiate community at Washington which was pretty close-knit, supportive and stable, I was a little wary of getting too close to too many athletes in Princeton since it was never very clear when any of us could suddenly and without warning be cut from camp and sent home. That combined with my position on the bottom rung of the proverbial Princeton ladder prevented me from really getting to know much of the PTC group off the water.
Now that I’ve been in Princeton for almost a year, I am less skeptical about the people I have met here. The women’s team is full of talented, unique individuals who are brilliant on and off the water, and who all have something special to offer to the team dynamic. The men’s team sort of grows on you. So inevitably I have developed close friendships with some of my teammates, and have come to care about them very much. Now when one of our own decides that she’s done for good and is ready to hang ‘em up, I’m left to face a new series of questions and emotions relating to my own training and place within the PTC group, and especially the speed at which rowing, selection, and racing…go.
My first brush with here-today-gone-tomorrow at PTC hit me head on early in June 2006. I was fresh off the plane from Seattle, and it was my second day of camp. Tom sat us all down and proceeded to cut about half the athletes from camp, many of whom I hadn’t yet met, let alone rowed with. After that very short meeting many of us sat in the Sikes Room at the Princeton boathouse in stunned silence, realizing that many of our friends and teammates had just had their worlds turned upside down right in front of us. Since that afternoon I have lived constantly with just a little bit of the terror of that day inside of me, knowing that I could be cut at any given moment on any given day; that I could be the one without my name on the list. I imagine that I will always feel that way while I continue to train in Princeton. Being cut from a team is a choice that is out of my hands; even if I perform to the best of my ability every day and give absolutely everything I have, I still may not be what a particular coach is looking for. Deciding to quit, however, is another matter entirely.
When I first found out that she had quit, I was really disappointed. My hopes for busting our butts together and having a blast through another PTC summer camp were instantly crushed. How could she do this to me? How could she just leave when it was so clear that I needed her here to help me face the challenges of the upcoming spring?—and wasn’t I a good enough friend to support her through the summer in return? Who is going to be my weightlifting buddy? Who is going to listen to me complain about blisters/track bite/my catch/men? Who is going to make fart noises at inappropriate times just to crack ourselves up for the sake of cracking ourselves up? Even though she’d told me point blank that she was done rowing, I couldn’t believe it. Really, my relationship with her had become synonymous with rowing in Princeton, and my anticipation of upcoming events now has a series of large holes in it where she—I thought—should be.
I asked myself all of these questions and a few others, and then got back on the reality wagon. As much as our relationship has come to mean to me, her decision isn’t about me. It never was. It’s about her, it’s about her rowing, and knowing when her time was up. She knows that there are other things out there that she is ready to do, and that she can’t (or doesn’t want to) do while trying to row at this level. Those things are inevitably going to bring her closer to becoming the person she wants to be—which is only a further developed model of the one I like so much now—so how could I possibly be upset with her for being ready to move on?
It’s usually about this time that I turn the interrogation lights on myself. If she can quit, why shouldn’t I? If she can get out there and do other things, why can’t I? My greatest fear in life is that I will run out of time to do all of the things that I want to do: travel, go back to school, have kids, own a house, win an Academy Award… I feel like I am running out of time, all the time. What is stopping me from turning off my alarm tonight, and sleeping in tomorrow and just not doing 1500m pieces in the morning?
The answer is that I don’t know. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is that has kept me in on so many Thursday and Friday nights, and up on Saturday mornings. I don’t know exactly what it is that brought me to Princeton to face bodily injury, physical strain and emotional belittlement instead of getting a nice job, having a cute apartment, a dog, cat, and becoming a Seattle weekend warrior. I have never been a diehard Olympic dreamer (though it’s starting to grow on me a little bit), and I know I’m not here for the money. But I do know that I love to compete. I love to learn. I love to face challenges and overcome them; the bigger the better. I love developing new skills and making new friends. I know the intangible parts of the sport are what keep me rising early (though never before tapping the snooze three times). I may never go to the Olympics, and I may never make the team—but I do know that I will keep pushing myself every day until I can dictate very clearly what it is that I loved about rowing so much, and how it is no longer there for me.
Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Maybe the end of the next quadrennium. Whenever it comes, I hope I know it when I see it so I can get on with having hands like a normal person, and expanding my non-lycra wardrobe.
I’m also hoping that it starts feeling a bit more like spring around here. The snow yesterday did not help.
See you out there,
--MK
surely you do have those Olympic dreams now, right? power of visualization, contagious achievment syndrome from everyone else at camp, etc etc. :P
i'm wondering if you would have talked your friend out of quitting had she mentioned it to you earlier. so much of why we do what we do in college is for the team (it was for me, anyway). once you get to the elite level, it's not so much that anymore...
i don't think there's any inherent shame in being cut as opposed to walking away on your own. i value the drive, determination, and self-belief more than the "dignity intact/free will" side of things. of course, that assumes that one must be ready to fully accept being cut if it comes to that. and it also kind of boggles my mind that when you saw that first round of athletes get cut, they were probably better rowers than you were--they'd just hit the end of their line, and you were the next generation coming up...
Truth be told, this incident was not the first time that she and I had discussed ending it all (oh the horror!). I guess she just wanted it to be the last time.
I don't think I would want to be able to talk someone out of something like that...rowing at this level is so much about facing new limits and learning new things about your self on such an incredibly personal level...getting someone else in there with a monkey wrench just seems kind of absurd to me. As much as rowing in a team boat is about coming together with your teammates, it has to start with you, and you alone.
If you're done, you're done. I respect her for realizing that and being prepared to move on.
And as far as the cut-from-campers, I should be crystal clear that not all of them are at "the end of their line"--many of them are still rowing in other places and hungry to get back in to the PTC group at the first available opportunity. AND they are probably still better rowers than me :)
ahh, gotcha. and i suppose that one person in a boat with slightly less motivation than any other person could be that weak link that kills a race, the race, or whatever was going on at the moment. i understand if she didn't want to be "that person." i wonder how i'd do in that kind of pressure cooker environment...guess that's what i read RCM for :P (i'd probably sing a different tune if i were in such a place, who knows.)
yeah, i understand about the cut-campers, but here i assume that terhaar knows what he's doing and that he projects a net benefit by keeping the younguns and cutting the sometimes older, more experienced rowers. sometimes it is about potential and not immediate performance--some things revolve around that almighty four-year cycle.
But chances are if you are "that person" you don't have to worry about killing a boat because you won't have been put in a boat to kill. Get it? Tom is quite good at reading those kinds of things, I think.
But on cutting/keeping I will not comment because I know nothing except that I got a shot to stick around and see how far I could get.
For the experience of a lifetime!! It's amazing what we've accomplished before most of the rest of the world even awakes. That, and living in the real world just isn't as fun.
Also, pogies will keep you warm.
Just remember those things when you roll out of your warm bed.
P.S.- Try some VH1 in the morning... that always wakes me up and helps give me a Goodale-type morning.