I am ready to stop pretending. I am ready to be honest; ready to reclaim my beauty, my story, my passion, and my voice. I am ready to wrestle with the truth, and that means standing face to face with the lies. I retired from field hockey six years ago, and I am finally ready to stop playing the game.
I am 36 years old and sitting at a table with my family in the ballroom at the Union League of Philadelphia. I’ve come here to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. This should be a happy moment but happy is not the right word to describe it. I don’t like the word happy. Happy is wrapped in deception and comes with a lot of baggage. It expects way too much from us. Decisive is a better word for this moment. It’s decisive because I feel something I’ve never felt before - I feel like myself.
I’m wearing a bright orange dress that I found on the sale rack at Kohl’s and earrings borrowed from my sister-in-law. I dyed my grey streak with a box of color from CVS the day before. All I have on my face is the mascara and concealer I found stashed in my back pack after realizing I’d left the rest of my make-up at home in Maryland. I got ready in twenty minutes. I’m slightly buzzed from the two beers I drank at my 8 year old nieces birthday party.
So, considering such unglamorous preparation, I am really surprised by how beautiful I feel on this night. I don’t usually feel beautiful. I usually feel stressed and on edge when I have to be around people. But on this night, I feel different. I feel the incomparable and undeniable beauty of being comfortable in my own skin. I don’t feel the pressure to perform, pretend or fit in tonight. I’m not trying to impress anyone. This is very new for me.
Since I was young, I’ve battled with my identity. The battle is between the me I am ‘out there’ in the light of the world, the ever-proving performer, and the me I am ‘in here’ in the depths of my own soul, the kind, spiritual thinker. Both sides are me, equally and paradoxically. I am both a performer, and a deep, quiet thinker. So the moments that I feel most beautiful are usually spent alone, in the quiet cuddled up with a book, a pen, and a journal. In those moments, I feel and express the rawest, most mysterious parts of life. During those moments, I can accept the paradox of my identity without judgement. I cocoon myself within its mystery, in awe and wonder of its intricate beauty.
In the quiet moments, I give myself permission to be both the loud, crazed competitor who loves to perform, and the quiet, observant, contemplative who loves to dig deep. I don’t have to be one or the other. I don’t have to contort myself to fit a frame someone else’s mind can understand. I give myself permission to be the paradox. In my most beautiful moments, I don’t pretend, I just am. I think that is why I feel so beautiful on this night. I am out there, and I am not pretending to be someone I think I should be. I am not trying to make sense, to be digest-able, to impress or prove anything to anyone. I am just here. I showed up, and for me, on this night, showing up is enough.
It took a lot for me to be here. A week before this night, I was in the shower, sobbing tears of exhaustion, desperately pleading for relief. I’d been around people too much over the past few months. I’d been going, going, going. I was breathing fumes, and the fumes were toxic, poisoning me from within. I needed space from people. I needed space to remember myself. It was a familiar, and suffocating feeling. A feeling I’d felt a lot in my younger days. The feeling of sacrificing myself in order to belong in and live up to something outside myself.
So tonight, this dinner in Philadelphia, is way more than celebration; it is a holy reckoning with myself. It is a choice between continuing the pattern of self-betrayal in order to 'fit in' or being ruthlessly honest with myself. Did I love this journey, or did I regret it? I don’t want to disappoint people with my honesty. I don’t want to be labeled as difficult or ungrateful because I am not either of those. What I want more than anything on this night is to be honest and free in front of this room full of familiar faces. They are the faces of family members, teammates, umpires, friends and coaches. Fellow lovers of a silly stick and ball game. Faces I’ve seen up close, and known from afar.
As I look at each face, I wonder if anyone knows what this moment is for me. I wonder if they really know the anguish I feel of being honored for achievements that still haunt me. I say they haunt me because the achievements came with a cost that I’m not sure I would have paid if I knew how broke it would leave me in the end. I traded my soul and beauty for a chance at what I thought was greatness.
I thought that if I worked hard enough, and punished myself long enough, I could earn a spot at some mystical table of worthiness. One day, I hoped that I’d open my email and find an invitation to THE TABLE. I am not exactly sure what table I wanted a seat at, some imagined table of glory. Mostly, I wanted belonging in a world that celebrated part of me while rejecting most of me. In the world of sport, the stronger performer I became, the more I learned to reject the sensitive, emotional, deep thinking part of me. I didn’t know how to hold space for both. To get where I have gotten in life, to get to this night, I denied part of me so the other part of me could flourish.
Sitting at the table in my orange dress, I make the decision to reclaim the whole of myself. I give voice to the question that has been haunting me as I reflected on my career. Was it worth it? In the quest to become a great athlete, I told myself many lies. I chose a path of pain and self-denial. I allowed myself to be exploited and abused in the pursuit of greatness. As I walk toward the podium, I wonder what I’ll say to this room full of people. How do I sum up my journey in this sport? The love and the hurt. How do I make it make sense? Because none of it makes sense to me. There was pain. So. Much. Pain. Hidden beneath a beautiful lie. A lie I needed to survive. And within the pain, I discovered so much joy. I found friendship and power too. Do I continue the mirage, do I play my role and say what is supposed to be said in these types of speeches, or do I let my heart speak? Do I trust myself enough to let my heart speak? How do I tell the story without being a total downer, and without pretending? I let the question linger, without an answer. I don't need an answer.
I walk to the podium, and I speak from the truest place within me. The place of inspiration, love, and truth. My words are the messy and beautiful merger of the paradox within me - the crazed competitor inviting the deep, intuitive thinker to sit beside her at the table. Both parts of me belong here. The whole of me finally feels welcome here.
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