Grief is the most tenacious of emotions. It only feigns defeat so it can reappear, fresh-armed and stronger than before, and when you are least expecting it. I was waiting for the bus this morning, watching crazies stumble through the sunshine of Crown Street, when suddenly I was immensely sad. Weak and tired under the weight of the emotion I thought I’d buried last month. I’d forgotten that grief, like any emotion, only intensifies when you bury it. Deny it, ignore it, look the other way and that elephant will just grow and grow. I see now that yesterday afternoon it was squeezing me hard against the wall on the beach, pressing me harder with every smile I forced and every ball I served.
So I’m trying to un-deny it today, to admit to my grief and my broken heart. But it’s difficult you see because if I’m honest I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed that my grief is for a dream that has died, not a person. Embarrassed I ever really had the dream. On the bus it occurred to me that perhaps I need a funeral. That’s what we do with people isn’t it? Acknowledge the loss, vaunt our sadness. It’s one of the few times in our lives when being unhappy is socially acceptable and we embrace it with black garb and weeping. Which is why I’m writing this really. This letter is my refusal to be ashamed. My confession of a silly ambition, but one which I really believed in and which I mourn now it is gone.
I’ve always loved volleyball. When I was 19 and living in Germany one of the few sporty things I ever did was join a volleyball club for a week or two. Years later I played in a gay volleyball team (The Volley Partons) in London, attended tournaments in Prague, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Barcelona. It wasn’t a very high standard and we only ever won the Miss Congeniality prize but it was fun. It was volleyball.
When I got to Australia five years ago I discovered the combination of volleyball and the beach and immediately fell in love. I found myself thinking that the utter pleasure I experienced when playing beach volleyball was more intense than any I’d ever known outside of love and making love. It was so concentrated and complete, such a technical team sport (name any other where two players pass a ball back and forth), so…whatever. It doesn’t matter really does it? I just loved it immediately.
I soon realised I wanted to be really good at this game. I was fed up of losing the court to better players (King of the Court is the rule on beaches around the world). And then that ambition, combined with (take your pick here) looming middle-age; a never-very-far need for validation; a refusal to live life locked in an office; a desire to be recognised as a fully-signed-up member of the male tribe; competitivity; trying to escape from the meaninglessness of life; wondering if now – at last – I could achieve something in life, bla bla bla….anyway, it combined with a bundle of emotions and I decided to Go For It.
Here’s the reasoning: No one in Britain can play beach volleyball. In 2012 London will host the Olympics. Host nations like to be represented in every sport. Host nation teams by-pass normal qualification procedures. If I worked really hard for six years I could represent Britain in beach volleyball at the London Olympics. Don’t laugh. OK, laugh, see if I care.
Bizarrely my coach thought this was just about feasible too. He thought it would take two years to get me to AA level, another to go interstate and then another to go international. No other Brits are on the international tour. Why shouldn’t this work?
Well, here’s why not. The less you know about something the less aware you are of how little you know. Just because a sport is not popular does not mean its athletes are any less able. After three tired, disciplined, emotionally draining years I only now realise I’m not a natural athlete. This is not self-pity, it’s level-headed fact. I don’t have any natural sporting talent. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be thick and now, at last, I know. Also I’m not 19 (although that’s less of a factor). And now I’m sick of doing nothing but beach volleyball every day. In October of last year I actually realised I’d come to hate the game.
All different ways of saying I’m just not good enough and – gulp – never will be. I play against tourists who played a lot in high school and see they are better than I will ever be. Admitting that is tough but denying it has been a lot tougher. Watching them makes even admitting my ambition embarrassing. I, who had the temerity to think I could represent my nation, will never be good as a good tourist.
So I’m burying my ambition. This letter is its funeral. But I’m not burying the emotion that goes around it. I am sad, I’ve lost a dream which I really believed in, and I’m embarrassed that I ever had it.
The farewell has its advantages of course. I’m learning to surf, I’m mountain biking when it’s not too hot. I could go home and read the paper all afternoon if I chose. And I’m learning to love the game again. Maybe I’m even improving faster now that the pressure is off. But it’s not all rosy in my heart just now. Which is fine. It’s OK to be sad. OK to be normal and not over-achieve.
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