40 By 40 #8: Join a Volleyball Team
When I resolved to set 40 goals for myself before my 40th birthday, I had all sorts of ideas run through my head. What I started with and have written about so far are some pretty big things. Anchoring myself back in my faith at church. Telling my parents and my kids that I love them daily. Documenting my family of 3 in photos. Traveling alone and with my kids. Making Christmas special. These are all pretty significant goals. But when I was setting my goals not everything on the list was going to be super deep and profound. Some will be seemingly small or simple things that on the surface don’t seem like such a big deal. However, to me, every goal has a purpose, a reason I’ve chosen it. One of these small goals was to join a sand volleyball team. Again, it sounds simple, but it was anything but.
Growing up I was always very interested and involved in sports. Baseball, Basketball, Soccer, Football, pretty much anything that involved competition and movement I was interested in. When I look back at my childhood, some of my fondest and clearest memories involve sports. This continued all the way up through High School and College. I was always physically active. If it wasn’t an organized sport, I spent time with my friends playing pickup games. Even as I graduated and got married, sports remained. I coached football and often liked to demonstrate techniques and get involved when I could physically. I did miss the organized competitive part of sports, so I looked for a way to meet that need. What I found was summer volleyball.
I don’t remember exactly what year we started, but at some point about 15 years ago or so my family formed a volleyball team. It was always a combination of my ex and me, my parents, my siblings, cousin and brother in law, and whoever we may have had to scrounge up as a sub week to week. I never played volleyball formally, but when I went on vacation to Mexico, beach and water volleyball were always games I enjoyed playing. Of course being a natural athlete I developed my skills and considered myself a decent player. We were in the “average” league. Competitive but not full of ringers. We won about as much as we lost. It was a great way to enjoy the summer. We stayed active, worked up a sweat, had fun, and usually enjoyed some beer and food as well.
But then as I got older, and life happened, these opportunities began to fade away. With the kids came spending more time with them. As they got older, they had sports of their own so I could help coach them, but also had less free time. I believe the last season we played volleyball our son was just a year or two old, because I remember him playing in the sand while we played our game. But by the time our second came, we stopped signing up. We moved a few hours north for my ex wife’s job, so I was no longer coaching football. What happened is what happens to a lot of people, I stopped being regularly active.
When that happens the weight continues to add up, the body becomes less able to respond when needed. Basically I was getting older and more out of shape. As summers would approach, I’d usually have the idea of joining a volleyball league, sometimes maybe even mentioning it to my ex or to others. But nothing ever came of it. I never took the initiative to actually find or start a team and get signed up. So the years kept adding up.
This year when I moved out in March, I once again had the idea that I should join a team. Of course though, I didn’t make it happen. I missed the Spring season, then I missed the Summer season. I was trying to do other things to get more active like walking, biking, and I joined a fitness boot camp. It was at that boot camp where I hit a huge setback. In my 3rd week of camp, I was doing a high knee jogging warm up, when I felt a pop in my knee, and when I stepped down, a lot of pain. I had torn my Meniscus and required surgery to fix it. That process basically made me virtually immobile throughout most of the summer.
When September started and my world had been rocked again, and when I started making my list, one of my major areas of focus was my physical health. I hated how helpless I felt hobbling around. I missed the ability I had in the past of being able to jump into most any kind of athletic activity and hold my own. I felt heavy, weak, and old. So as I started thinking about goals that would help me regain this part of my life, my memories of my old volleyball team came into my head. So that’s one of the goals I made, find and join a team.
I was unable to play in the Fall season, I was still not ready for it physically. So I was looking at the Winter season as when I would start. My resolve was there to join a team, the problem was I had no team to join. I had started to ask around a bit to see if anyone might be interested. I got a lot of people saying maybe they could sub, but probably not commit as a regular player. I was getting frustrated as I had my goal, but no one to help me accomplish it. When I was sharing my frustrations with my life coach (an upcoming goal I’ll speak more about), she helped put me in touch with a friend, who referred me to a Facebook page for one of the local leagues where you could post looking for a team or to sub. So I joined this page, and put my info out there and kept my eye out for “help wanted” posts. One day a post was made looking for a guy for a team, so I responded, and I was accepted! I was now on a team and ready to go.
The night of the first game I was very nervous. In the past I wouldn’t have been like that, I was confident enough in my abilities that I knew I’d be ok. But with my knee still not 100%, and not having played in about a decade, I was worried I’d be terrible and make my team regret allowing me to join them. As the game started and I had the first few balls come my way, I was relieved when I was actually holding my own. I wasn’t zipping around the court, my mobility was clearly limited, but I wasn’t the weak link I was worried I’d be. My serve was rusty, the first few went into the net to my embarrassment. But I switched to underhand and did ok after that.
I’ve been playing now for over a month, and have joined a second team with some friends. I’m making new friends and every week I can feel my body becoming more mobile again. I’m still a work in progress, but I’ve taken that first step and actually got my butt out there and got rid of the excuses. My hope is that I can now start playing each new season and make this a part of my life. The truth is I do enjoy it, I look forward to it each week. When I’m playing I feel like my old self again.
So as I said earlier, this goal maybe doesn’t seem as deep or profound as some of my earlier ones. But it was important to me. Part of living a fulfilling life is to do things that bring you joy. For me playing volleyball is a way to fuel my competitive side as well as to stay active in a way that doesn’t seem like too much work for me. Physical health is so important, and it’s also a huge hurdle for many. We’ve all had that feeling when we recognize we need to be more active, and then try to do that but dread having to get up and actually do things. That’s why it’s important to try and find activities that are actually enjoyable so when you stay active it’s no longer a chore or something to avoid, but something you look forward to and want to do more often. For me volleyball fits that description. Find what that is for you, don’t be afraid to try new things. Don’t allow yourself to make excuses about why you can’t do something. Talk to people about your goals and see if they have ideas or connections that can help you.
So I’m active again and on the road to continue to improve myself. My next goal came up quickly, and it’s a major one. It also happens to coincide with a special date. I started looking to buy a house, and within a week of looking I had an accepted offer! When the closing date was given to me, January 21st, I realized that date marked my 365th day of living as a man becoming divorced.
