I Got In!

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced since packing up and moving (alone) to a new state has been rebuilding my social circle. Did I go out a ton when I lived in Tucson? No, I spent a lot of time at home. But having lived essentially my entire life in the same town, there was always a sense that if I wanted to go out, I could just call any of a number of people and have something to do within a couple hours. Not the case these days.

Enter the Meetup app/website. In edition to trying to meet new people, I’ve also been trying to remember more of the things I enjoy doing and that make me “me.” I did some searching for events related to poker, movies, Marvel, and volleyball. One of the Meetups I found was a bunch of open-gym volleyball nights. After rain (and nervousness) stopped me from getting to the first couple, I finally found a night that worked for me and forced myself to go.

Oh man! I felt so awkward. With the exception of a handful of people, everyone was 15-20 years younger than me. Makes sense. Most people my age are too busy wrangling children to get out and play volleyball on a weeknight.

On top of the age thing, I haven’t play in forever! Even when I played quite a bit, I wasn’t that great. I didn’t play competitively. I just had a ball and a net we’d throw up at a park whenever we could get enough people together. My parents also put up some poles in the side yard of our house when I was in high school. There were plenty of Sunday nights that involved a bunch of the kids from our church coming over to play and eat pizza. The ground was hard and the guy lines supporting the poles were deadly in the dark, but we had a great time.

Side story… thinking about that court at my parents’ house brought back a hilarious (and painful) memory. One of my best friends, Cindy, was over one evening. We were running around, no clue why, but she ran behind the volleyball post and ran her forehead right into the guy line. The top half of her body instantly came to a halt mid-air while the lower half of her body continued forward at its current speed. Oh man! She hit so hard. I still remember her having a purple stripe across her forehead for like a week. Everyone laughed, but dang, that must have been painful! Back before the iPhone days, so no video, kids. Sorry.

So there I was in a random gym, with no friends, and next to no skills. Believe me when I tell you it was painful. But I stuck around a played a couple games. Then it was time to shuffle up teams, and I played a couple more. By the time the night was over, we’d played 12 or so games. I didn’t realize it until about halfway through, but I was totally beat-up.

By the time I left that gym, I was all swollen and in a decent amount of pain. I had bruises and lumps all over my arms (please enjoy the photo below of my favorite arm lump). I’m pretty sure I pulled every muscle/tendon/ligament between my elbow and finger tips. But I had a really great time and left smiling. I was so ready to show up for another one.

A bunch of open gym nights were cancelled after that, but that night led me to look into joining a team. As much fun as it was to play with a bunch of strangers, I figured if I was on a team and seeing the same humans every week, I might actually start to get to know some people up here. So… long story long, back in the beginning of December I signed up for the winter league.

Since I don’t have a team, I had to sign up as freelance and wait to see if there were enough freelancers to form a team. The email I got back after sign-up clearly stated that I wouldn’t hear anything until a week before the season started, but I still checked the website every other day. Needless to say I was anxious and excited to get on a team.

Well… as of today, I’m happy to announce that I’m in! Starting next week, I’ll be playing week in the Underdog “softcore” volleyball league. Sounds dirty… it’s not. It just means no one is expected to have any skills whatsoever. Of course, you know I’m way too competitive to stay in softcore, but I figured I should brush up on my skills a bit and see how I stack up before joining AAA. 😂