To the sport I love, but have to break up with;
Oh Bowling… You have not just been a part of my life, but have been my life for the past 15 years. I grew up with you in my life and use to talk the world of you. I would defend you and get so mad when someone said you weren’t a real sport. I would spend at least 2 hours every day, 7 days a week with you practicing, throwing ball after ball until things were just right. I always described our relationship as a love/hate relationship, but anymore there’s less love and more hate.
I started bowling when I was just 5 years old, I started out with junior leagues, moving on to competitive tournaments as I got older, eventually high school, and now college. Throughout my 15 years as a bowler, I threatened to quit so many times, but could never get myself to follow through. Probably why no one believes I am really done this time. But I am, I have to be.
I was raised by a bowling crazed dad and knew nothing but tough love and endless practicing. I couldn’t count the amount of times I had to tell my friends I couldn’t do something because I had bowling, or the millions of sleepovers I missed growing up since I had to be at the bowling alley by 9am every Saturday morning. So many of my weekends were spent in hotels rooms for tournaments. Tournaments consisted of two days of all day bowling. By all day I mean 6 or 7 hours of nothing but bowling for two days in a row. My thumbs were almost always without giant rips in them, and usually always covered in new skin. But with all the pain and hardships, came the rewards and highs of the sport. The pure excitement of winning a tournament, making it to state, bowling a new high game or counting my trophies was the adrenaline that kept me going, I loved it.
It may sound corny, but bowling shaped me into the person I am today and I don’t regret a single second of the hard work I put into it. From a very young age it taught me discipline, organization, time management, determination and willpower to succeed. Growing up, bowling to make me so happy and be my home away from home. I use to have so much fun going to tournaments and being with my team. It always my biggest stress reliever. Now? I have found myself no longer having any love for it. I find myself angry at tournaments and more upset then I would be if I didn’t go at all. As far as my team goes, some of them I’ll miss and others have been my final push to the quitting line. Bowling now causes me the most stress instead of taking it away. I am too busy stressing over the score and what I can do to make myself or my team do better that I can’t concentrate on my game and end up stressed as can be in the end. Bowling has caused me so many panic attacks this season and makes me feel sick to my stomach when I’m competing. I now feel that this sport is no longer worth it.
Bowling has caused me so much pain, not just emotionally but physically too. I have more health problems then I can count, most caused by bowling. I have problems that a girl my age should not have. My back is almost always in pain due to arthritis, hairline fractures and scoliosis. Most caused by overuse, and throwing a 15-pound ball down the lane at 15 miles per hours. My knees are bad, and tend to hurt every time I try to bend. My hips give out randomly and I can barely walk most days, let alone bend. If I want to be able to live the adventurous life that I have always dreamed about, I must let you go. My health is way more important than a game.
It was incredibly difficult for me to decide it’s time to say goodbye to the thing that has been my whole life for so many years. I was scared of losing friends, but then realized are they really my friends If they don’t support my decision? I was also afraid my parents would be disappointed in me. It took a lot of thinking and two pages full of pros and cons, but I made the decision to move on. My morals, values and mental health were a million times more important to me than seeing my name on another trophy.
I have let bowling be my life for so long that I am now burned out, done and just over it. I can no longer find enjoyment in it or get myself to enjoy it. It has given me the best 15 years of my life, definitely the hardest, but still the best. But I finally think it’s time to say goodbye. I will now hang up my shoes, pack away my many bowling balls, box up all those trophies and say see you later. Maybe one day I will come back to you, refreshed and better than ever. They do say, if you love something let it go, if it comes back to you then it’s yours forever, if it doesn’t, it never was. I hope we find our way back to each other one day, but for now this is goodbye. See you later lanes, for you are no longer my second home.
