OF A GOLDEN AGE

In junior high and high school I had terrible experiences in girls’ sports, as I recently told my troublemaking buddy Genghis.

Having spent my whole childhood as a swimmer, I was accustomed to a low-drama, high-autonomy sportslife, where I was left alone for my own performance. My small team never had a chance to win meets, and even the big teams were more concerned with individual progress. With volleyball, girls who teased or ignored me in the halls at school now got to mock me to my face; my coaches were idiots, clearly reliving their high-school glory days through the popular bitches on my team. This experience ruined the sport for me for a long time.

This all leads up to the fact that my company has a beach volleyball team through Chicago Sport & Social. The game start times overlap my work day, but I caught the end of a couple of games last week.

Volleyball is absurdly fun! How did I let catty bitches make me forget this? In any case, it’s wonderful to play again, especially with great teammates and so little pressure. Yesterday I bought a volleyball and took it to my YMCA for a little serving practice and absolutely ate it up. Today I can hardly lift my arm.

There are those who dwell in high school because it was the best time, and there are those who dwell in it for the opposite. I am neither, as a general rule, but my team sports angst is built into playing volleyball, which is really interesting. Sense memory, I guess.

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