Me + Sports

I’ve always considered myself somewhat of a sporty person. Don’t get me wrong - I’m first and foremost an INTP bookworm. But I also like to move. My dad is very athletic, and has always been involved in one sport or another. My mom, on the other hand, is… not athletic at all. (Even if she does make efforts to do activities with my dad.)

So I guess more because of my dad, I’ve always been involved in sports, despite my bookish ways. It started out with gymnastics, which I loved… then volleyball, golf, and soccer. I even tried my hand at basketball one year! (I’m 5’1”!) I have been skating since I was 2 (or so I’ve been told), but for whatever reason my parents never enrolled me in hockey, and by the time I was interested in playing, I thought I was too far behind the other girls my age, skill-wise. My parents have actually admitted that it’s because I’m a girl that they didn’t really think of signing me up. Maybe if my brother had come first, both of us would have played hockey…

Anyway, I still played in several organized sports for most of my childhood, but by the end of high school, I became involved in fewer and fewer of them. I think I felt like I had too many other things to do. I had started working on evenings and weekends, and I had a boyfriend that I wanted to spend time with, so I stopped playing soccer in the summer, and my extracurricular activities dwindled down to pretty much just biking and hiking/trail running. Once I got to university, I worked so much (on schoolwork AND to make money!) that I didn’t even see how I could find the time to get involved in sports. I had full courseloads, a part-time job (at some points more than one!) and a relationship to juggle. So again, all I did was bike, rollerblade, and do some hiking during the summers. In the winter, we’d go (downhill) skiing maybe once or twice, and I’d sometimes snowshoe with my parents, but that’s it.

Now that I’m pretty much done with school (finally), I’ve gotten back to playing more sports! Since the beginning of my MA, I’ve made time for yoga. This winter, I added cross-country skiing to the winter sports I’ve been doing more and more of. And I just registered this morning for an amateur softball league, which I am very excited about. In fact, that’s what led me to this whole reflection on my relationship to sports. I suppose if I was a die-hard sports fanatic (like MB), I would never have gone all those years without being involved in one type of sport or another. (I probably wouldn’t have gained so much weight during my BA either!) So it has to do with priorities, I guess. I know the fact that I’m involved in more sports now has to do with being with MB, too. But I do enjoy sports, regardless of whether or not I am practicing them with him – and I am so happy to be moving more again now.