After abruptly finishing my final season of collegiate sports following a serious injury, I find myself empty-handed, lingering in the liminal space left behind when a lifelong pursuit reaches its quiet, unceremonious end.
I am, unfortunately, still inhabiting this intermediary. This grey expanse takes the form of a shadowy, amorphous figure during my daily workouts, whispering uncertainty about progress, stagnation, and the inevitable loss an athlete experiences when they are, without warning, stripped of the sport that raised them. It is a peculiar kind of grief — this shedding of an identity I’ve woven into my body so deeply that it is impossible to remove the fabric without pain. The structure of a team, the push of a coach, and the adrenaline of game days now forever in the past, I am left with a question I never thought I’d have to answer: What now?
Soccer defined me for over a decade. From middle school practices under fading flood lights to my Division I collegiate commitment to Davidson College, then to Swarthmore, where I enjoyed two seasons beneath a canopy of ancient Crum trees, my world was measured in sprints, games, and the crisp sound of a ball meeting the back of the net. Now, the silence is unfamiliar. Daunting even. The absence of a whistle, of a set schedule, of teammates sharing the weight of exhaustion … it leaves me unmoored.
And yet, somewhere in this ear-panging quiet, I began to run. Not for a coach, not for a team, not for anything but the rhythm of my own breath and the simple pleasure in pain. In a world that constantly demands sensational exhilaration, I have stumbled upon a different kind of beauty: the elegance of repetition, the poetry of monotony. The gentle hum of nature as I push forward on Rabbit Run Road, the familiar cadence of my footfalls against pavement or road. As I run, street names and landmarks pass by in a comforting recognition like tracing the smooth ink lines in a favorite section of a well-read book. There is something deeply human in this act — this forward motion, this quiet defiance against an earthly inertia.
Each run is both peaceful and rebellious. A space where my mind unspools, where physical exertion becomes an intimate dialogue between effort and ease. There is no competition: no champion at the finish line, no accolades waiting at the end — only the simple, undisturbed joy of movement that floods my being when I finally finish. Perhaps that is enough. Perhaps that is everything. Perhaps this perfectly pure act was what I missed all along.
