Dear Me in 4 Months,

Jen Xu
Jen Xu
Sep 8, 2018 · 3 min read

The regular season of football will be over! You will be just starting your second semester of grad school, and you will still get excited every single time you remember that you’re there. You will hopefully have been refreshed by a week or two at home (depending on the bowl game…eek), with family you haven’t seen since last July, and friends you haven’t seen in just about as long.

You will have learned and grown SO much, it will be crazy.

You’ll have learned how to stand up for yourself in moments of discomfort, and you’ll have learned how to stay true to yourself while also understanding just what “making it” in this job takes.

You’ll have learned to pick your battles wisely, hopefully. With friends, coworkers, anyone you might run into. You’ll have learned that there are things that come first, and there are times that you come first on your priority list and that is more than okay.

You’ll have played water polo 2 nights a week for an entire semester at this point, and you’ll feel good because you’ll make sure to do your rehab often (as I write this, I’m not doing too hot…oops). You’ll also have tried to lift weights 2x a week, but with football, who knows.

You’ll have learned better evaluation, documentation, rehabilitation, and people skills. You’ll have become a better athletic trainer than you were the first day you stepped into the AT room here. However, you’ll recognize, as you always will, that you have work to do — but you’ll embrace it.

You’ll have been shown appreciation a few times for the job you do, and that is more than you could have ever asked for. You’ll realize you don’t do this job for any sort of glory, you do it because you love helping people learn to love and trust their own bodies and minds — physically and emotionally.

You’ll have met a lot of new people with the water polo team and classes and activities, and you’ll have strengthened relationships with some that you’ve known for a longer time. You’ll have learned to become more patient and loving and gracious towards others — and a lot more gracious towards yourself. You’ll also have learned how to stay true to what you’ve always wanted, and not let anyone else change your mind if you do not want to.

You’ve seen every day as a challenge, but in a good way. A challenge to see if you can choose your words and the volume of your speech more wisely. If you can be more uplifting in your speech. If you can push past your anxious moments and do your job well. If you can bite your tongue when you don’t necessarily want to. If you can speak up and have hard conversations when you’re scared. If you can let the small things go. If you can take criticism and truly do something with it. If you can let others be human and make mistakes and speak incorrectly and mess up.

Hey — you’re going to be okay. You are always going to be okay! You are strong and fearless and courageous, and you are resilient in body, mind, speech, and values. No matter what happens, remember who you are, where you came from, and where you want to go. Be patient, you’ll figure it out.

But also…has anyone ever really figured it out?

Don’t stress. Light as a feather. Except for when you’re in a vacuum chamber because then you fall at the same speed as a bowling ball, which is really weird, but really cool. Solve problems as they come, and don’t look for problems that don’t exist just because you have an urge to solve something.

Sometimes you just need to sit. You need to be. You need to let the things that are going to happen…happen. Other times, you have to work really hard to achieve things and that’s just as wonderful.

Anyway, the basic idea is that you’ll have learned a lot, and you’ll learn so much more. You’ll do so much more.

Love,

Jen.

Jen Xu

Written by

Jen Xu

I talk about sports, fitness, mental health, being Asian-American, and personal growth.