Pain, heaviness and everything in between.
It’s 2:45 am of December 24, wow, Kobe was right-“time has wings”. I was looking at some photos from the previous UAAP season and man, I really thought I was over it or at least I thought that the pain of the season has somehow died down a bit. Well, this morning I found out otherwise and I can’t help but put it into writing.
It was heavy. To sum it all up, the season was just so heavy. It dragged my heart to the ground and I bet it wasn’t just my heart but as well as the hearts of my sisters (teammates). Every single time you hear that buzzer go off and know that you’ve lost once again, nothing could ever explain that feeling. A whirlwind of thoughts enter your head as to what had just happened during the last 40 minutes. But every single time, I can’t seem to arrive at an answer, I know that because the next buzzer would go off and still we find ourselves on the exact same position-bottom. As I go and shake the hands of the opposing team, in my puzzled state, there’s this unseen battle that begins in my head. Two irreconcilable persons rage against each other, one is telling me to stay positive, the other screaming for me to throw in the towel; And every game lost, the latter gains strength and there are days when her screams take over the room and it tears me down, piece by piece. The unfortunate part, not to mention, is you never get numb with the pain, instead every game lost becomes more painful than the previous played. Eventually the pain weighs down on your body, on your mind, until it penetrates your heart and when it does, it takes thrice the energy to bounce back from it. It’s like a paint stain on your skin, water, in itself won’t do the job, and not even soap can take if off.
Painful would the other word to describe the season. Well, heavy was just the by-product of pain. There was no loss that I did not sob over-tears or without tears, benched or playing. But who am I kidding, I always had tears, a lot of it actually. I tried to contain it when a friend once told me that it wasn’t good to always be crying but I failed miserably. And this pain wasn’t all emotional, it has its way of creeping into your body and seeping into your bones. There are days when it paralyzes you. But it’s funny how it paralyzes you, numbing your body from all other emotions except the pain itself. For the worst part, it magnifies this emotion as all else is faded to the background. Every loss seemed to place another pound of weight on your already tired and frail body. And that last buzzer at our last game is like giving a fractured hand a tight squeeze. So tight, you begin to feel the bones of your palm slide against each other. It broke my heart. it broke our hearts. A year long of grind, day in and day out has bore no fruits.
But you stay true to the game, to the university and to yourself. I… stayed true to the game, to my beloved UP and to myself. I took an oath to fight with all my heart every time: injured or not, benched or playing, win or lose. And I think the pain and heaviness and everything in between all branch out from this oath, this character, this mindset or whatever you want to call it. It’s the price people pay for not giving up-you get hurt, you feel pain, it injures your soul and eventually weighs you heavy. But I believe just like how the painful mini-tears you get when you lift heavy weights would eventually lead to a stronger muscle and a better body, this too, shall be the same. Actually, to some extent it is now. The character you get out of these experiences is priceless. When you fight battles you know you could not win, or keep on with the race even when you know you’d be the last one to cross the finish line, these are the things that, I believe with all my heart, would get me through in life when the time comes that I am past this chapter.
“…those times when you get up early and you work hard; those times when you stay up late and you work hard; those times when don’t feel like working — you’re too tired, you don’t want to push yourself — but you do it anyway. That is actually the dream. That’s the dream. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” - Kobe Bryant
It’s already 5:05 am, this is enough writing for today.
