A Place To Belong

It was a year ago today that my dream of playing college hockey came true, when I officially joined the WD2 team here at Adrian. In the last year, I think I’ve experienced every emotion in the book because of that single decision that I made to join a college hockey team.

It was my dream, my biggest achievement, the pinnacle of my short lived hockey career and the thing that I had worked for since I was 14 and a dream that I had spent an entire year thinking would never come true.

In the weeks that eventually lead up to quitting, I was miserable. I didn’t even want to be at the rink, which is saying so much because it has been my safe haven and my safe place since I was 14 years old and was desperately trying to escape the world of high school drama and mean teenage girls.

Five years later, I found myself with nowhere to escape to. I didn’t want to be at the rink because I didn’t want to see my coach, I didn’t want to be at practice because I never felt like I was doing good enough despite putting everything I had into what I was doing, I didn’t want to be in the locker room because I felt invisible, I didn’t even want to be playing games because I felt like I was always doing something to give her an excuse to sit me at the end of the bench and not move even if we were winning 6-1.

I didn’t want to be at home, my roommate was half of the reason my life felt like hell. The person I once thought of as one of my closest friends had turned out to be a green eyed monster, determined to undermine my life and screw up and mess with anything that made me happy and doing everything from sleeping with someone who she knew I had feelings for repeatedly to lying to the coach about me because she had her wrapped around her finger.

I was stuck.

I was miserable.

There was one escape that I felt like I had on, I had D1 games, mainly road games where I could be away from the drama that had accumulated around my own house and my safe place. The parents and families with that team were a family and my family got to be a part of that family these last two seasons and one of the biggest reasons I got through this past year with my sanity intact was because of the escape that this family gave me whether they knew it or not.

A year ago, I had a very different picture painted of what I thought the rest of the year would look like. After realizing our team was pretty decent, I knew we would have a strong chance of playing at the National Tournament, something that I dreamed of in high school as I watched our beloved D3 Gold Team win 3 straight National Championships. I quit before the end of the semester, a week before the final weekend of games and that dream died with my hockey career. But 3 months later, I got media credentials for the National Tournament that let me be right in the middle of everything on the bench during the last two minutes or so of the National Championship game with the D1 team.

That moment of pure joy and celebration as the buzzer went off (something I don’t even remember hearing, it was so loud on the bench) and the hours that followed that I spent surrounded by some of my favorite people and the people that had helped me, whether they knew it or not, make it through one of the toughest years of my life was so special and something that I'll treasure forever. I lost my voice for at least a week after Nationals, i screamed and yelled my lungs out that weekend and I can't wait to do it again this coming March.

I also had my HMI family, they understood, they were there for me more than the people who called me their best friend. They didn’t belittle me, they didn’t blow off my struggles and they didn’t act like my feelings were insignificant. These people are my village too and I wish I could be with them more than just one week out of the year. I felt like the people who were all hours away were there for me more during that time than anyone who spent nearly every waking moment with me or hanging out at my house.

Five years ago, my hockey family and my HMI family were my escape from the drama of high school but now I found myself needing an escape from hockey, something that I never thought would happen.

I spent the last year hanging around people away from the rink that, as time went on, I realized weren’t really my friends. I hung around people who subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, belittled everything from what I wore to how I acted to my hobbies and passions. The worst part about it though, was that some of those people called themselves my best friends.

When summer break finally came around and everyone, for the most part, left, I felt lonely, but I realized that being lonely with nobody around was ten times better than being lonely while you’re in your house surrounded by people who claim to be your friend but ignore you when a better, or in most cases last year, a more fun, offer came around.

I found comfort in my camp family, my HMI people, my “squad” and our Snapchat group of former campers who had been around since the beginning. I can’t remember who started it, but it has kept me sane for the past year more than anyone will ever know or realize. The time between everyone leaving Adrian for the summer and before HMI week is probably the worst two months of the year, you've just spent 9 months with your incredible hockey family and now it's 2 months before you have any of your people around again.

This year’s camp was probably one of the best camps yet, I feel like that we didn’t just reach the kids, but our core group of campers turned counselors grew together even more so than we had as campers in years past and our bond has strengthened into something that I wish I could have with all of my friends. I felt re-invigorated after camp and our "squad reunion" the weekend after camp was over and found some self confidence that I didn't know i had in me, that I felt like had been obliterated over the past year spent with people who tore me down rather than build me up.

My thoughts about my so called "friends" at school were reaffirmed by my camp friends, they made me realize and really open my eyes to the fact that some of these people weren't my friends, they just wanted to use me for information and gossip. I went into the school year with a new mindset, that i didn't need those people and that i didn't want to be around people who treated me poorly.

A lot can change in a year, like I said before, it was a year ago today that I joined the WD2 team and now I sit here in the lobby of Arrington Ice Arena without a team to play on, but with something so much more on my side, a family, a place to belong, and a support system that I truly could not live without, and that means more to me than any kind of playing career every could.

I've found my place to belong and nobody will ever take that away.