Nicole Week 7: Losing Passion for a Sport

    One of the most difficult pills to swallow is accepting that you have lost passion for the sport that had once occupied your most ambitious dreams. For me, dance was my outlet. My routine centered around my drive for dance: practicing in the basement for hours leading up to the 2-4 hours of rigorous dance practice, then back again in my basement until my legs could not keep up with the passion in my heart and I was forced to face the mountain of dreaded homework. Each first place trophy was a token of the hours destroying my body paying off, validating my exhausting and harmful efforts. As I grew older, my love for dance grew stronger but my desire for perfection was slowly taking an irreversible toll on my physical health. My conscience was blinded by the beaming trophy and I continued to ignore my doctor’s and family’s pleading urges to stop before the harm was undoable. I tested my limits by taking immeasurable lengths, and subsequently, injuries that were meant to heal in one month became years of physical pain. Eventually, this physical pain transpired into a heartbreaking mental burden. 

    The summer air was slowly slipping away, leaving a faint lingering smell of ice cream and beaches as I drove away from my summer home in Cape Cod. The conclusion of summer 2021 invited the eager rising freshman like me to look forward to the thrill of high school. As the leaves began to redden and Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes became my usual, I was seamlessly easing into the environment at a new school. In the past, fall marked the beginning of the long awaited dance season back in my second home: the studio. However, I was lacking the spark of excitement to return, believing that the rush of high school was to blame and my usual unwavering dedication would return shortly. Eventually, to my suspecting thoughts, the lack of motivation initiated the inevitable fall of my dance career. 

    In the absence of the passion that had previously driven me to go above and beyond, the hours of demanding dance practice became unsustainable. The injuries that I had previously ignored had become my focal point, and I did not have the motivation anymore to dance through the pain. I began to regress and my teachers began noticing. I started to skip classes as my body could not physically perform at the same level as before. My previous driven mentality had withered away, leaving me burnt out and tired. Eventually, I had to make one of the hardest decisions to let down my team and quit midseason or continue to withstand the mental and physical pain. My friends and family advised me to put my health first before the obligation to finish the year, and the email was sent that I would be departing from the place that had once been my paradise.