Crew Terror

Dear Younger Ella,

What if I told you that three numbers on a little monitor no longer define who you are. What if I told you the same 7 words no longer haunt you everyday. No longer follow you everywhere you go, always in the back of your mind: “You’re weak, you don’t have what it takes”

These are the words your crew coaches scream in your ear as though you’re not already fighting for your life, praying you just make it through one more workout, the idea of not being here, sounding better and better to you everyday.

What if I told you that you no longer cry yourself asleep every night worried you’ll never be good enough for anything or anyone.

You let rowing consume your entire life, the idea of it taking up every inch of space in that little brain of yours, the first thing you thought about when you woke up in the morning, the last thing you thought about before you went to bed, the thing that woke you up in the middle of the night in a panick, the first consideration when making a decision about anything, it was the only thing that mattered to you anymore, it felt like the only thing still going in this miserable life you had made for yourself.

You kept asking yourself, how could a sport that started out as a fun afternoon activity to make new friends turned into this? Crew used to be the thing you looked forward to all day, getting to go out and row on the river in the pleasant afternoon sun, a way to reset and re-wind from the day, a way to get your anger and frustration out, all while still having a laugh with your friends.

The thing is, it was never about winning for you, you didn’t care about taking home a medal and all the fame and glory that came from that, you just cared about getting to do something that you loved, until that somehow wasn’t the case anymore

Your coaches would give speech upon speech about how we came here to win and that’s all that mattered, no matter what it costed, so naturally this became engraved in you and teammates’ brains, it was now not only a competition against every school, but also against every single one of you to be the best, to be the strongest, to actually be recognized by your coaches. There was one problem though, you weren’t like the rest of your teammates, you were short, weak, and did not eat right.

This didn’t stop you though, you worked out 7 days a week, never taking a break leaving time for anything else, barely finishing your school work, slowly pushing away your friends because you were too tired to do anything but go to school, crew, and sleep. Every muscle in your body ached to the point where you were numb, your hands ripped to shreds from rowing, but all that mattered to your coaches and teammates was being the best, so that should be your goal too, at least that’s what you kept telling yourself

Everytime you would try and talk to your coaches, they would always tell you that, “It’s not about the size of the dog in the fight, it’s about the size of the fight within the dog”, not acknowledging that you were fighting as hard as humanly possible for someone your size, you just simply did not have the means to be as good as others

Every time you’d lose a race (which was most of them) your teammates, who were supposed to be your friends would judge you because they were placing first, second or third, but in spite of everything you did, you couldn’t. How was it that your own teammates who were practically your sisters also now belittling you?

It felt like you had absolutely no one in your life now, your few friends and family tired of hearing you bitch and moan about crew 24/7, telling you that you dug your own grave and need to find your own way out of this mess, and although you knew this was true, you were so lost and clueless, you had no idea what to do. What would your purpose in life even be without crew? Would you even still have your friends or would they too see you as the failure you thought you were?

The idea of quitting crew, giving up everything you had worked so hard for, basically the only thing left in your life started to surface. Was the best way out of this mess to just leave it behind completely and try and forget it even happened? Were you really going to discard three and a half years of your life with one email?

Turns out you were, one day after yet another row with tears streaming down your face, you finally decided you had had enough, you knew you were never going to be good enough and that was ok with you, even if it wasn’t with anyone else.

When you finally announced this, your coaches started to gaslight you, saying that if you were giving up then you didn’t have what it took to actually be a rower anyway, but so what if this was true right? You kept trying to tell yourself it didn’t matter that you had basically wasted your entirety of high school focused on this one stupid sport, never leaving time to just live your life and have fun like most people your age do.

Just like you suspected, your teammates, the people you had shed all your blood and tears with over the past few years, the people who you saw almost everyday and spent every waking second with stopped talking to you, turns out the friendships were purely based on the sport and nothing else. You immediately started to regret your decision of quitting, but it was too late, the damage is done.

Fast forward a year, and I am writing to tell you that, despite being the hardest decision you have ever made, that was also the best possible decision you could have ever made. Although it took you months to really realize this, and many many hours agonizing over whether you had made the correct decision, you finally came to terms with what you had done and are so relieved you did. Who knows what you would have done if you had stayed for your senior season, you were in a very unhappy and unsure place in your life.

You finally got to explore interests outside of rowing, like going on walks and runs. You finally got to have time to yourself after 3.5 years of constantly working, you finally realized who your actual friends are, ones who didn’t care about some stupid score on an erg machine, rather if you were happy or not. Best of all, you are no longer so miserable in life that you feel like you have nothing to live for. You actually have a future you look forward to, and genuine friends who care about you. Take this as a sign to always go with your gut and what you think is best for yourself, rather than what everyone else around you is trying to tell you to do. You gotta be your own person, only you truly know what is best for yourself. Most importantly, you no longer let 3 numbers on a little monitor define who you are.

Sincerely,

Older and Wiser Ella