Early life Crisis?

Well, I know that I am too young to have a "Mid-Life Crisis", but That is about what I am having. Over the last two years, a lot of things that I had thought were stable in my life have changed. 2 years ago, I was in the middle of my Freshman year of college. I was attending Chowan University (Murfreesboro NC) and playing football. At this point, I had no clue that in the coming weeks my entire coaching staff would be flipped upside down, and we would have one of the worst head coach and staff in the world come in and destroy the since of team that we had built.

After the coaching change, the new staff did its best to run off anyone of any talent who had played under the previous staff. Since I started as a freshman on the OL, I was one of the ones who was on the outs. I knew that I wouldn't play much (if any) that season, and I knew after a week that I would not be returning to Chowan after that semester.

The hardest part of all of this was the amount of work that I put into training going into that camp. I was working out 4-5 days a week, working 40 hours a week and getting myself into the best shape of my life (to that point). I was able to bench 350+, I could squat well over 700 lbs and I could leg press 1500 lbs. I was running a sub 4.6 second 40 yard dash. I had worked myself into prime form, under the guidance of a former PRO football player.

Football was how I saw myself. Whenever someone asked me about myself, the first thing I would say was that "I am a football player". I knew that I was more than that, but Football was ME. The first fall after I stopped playing was last fall. It was my first semester at Appalachian State University (one of 2 former NCAA Division 1-AA schools that invited me to be a preferred walk on when I was in high school) and Appalachian was 1 season removed from winning its 3rd straight National Championship. I threw around the idea of walking on, making the team and proving the staff at Chowan wrong. But I didn't.

So much of my life has revolved around team or organized sports. From the time I was 4, I was playing soccer and baseball. From there I advanced to playing baseball and football. Finally in high school, I played Football and threw the shot put. My Mom tells the story of the first day I came home from football practice in the 7th grade. It was August the 6th, (2 days prior to my Bday), and I walked in the house, sweaty, smelly and tired. But when she asked me how practice was, I looked at her and said "Mom, I have found what I was meant to do."

Now, I know just about every child that plays a sport dreams about going pro. It doesn't matter if it's baseball, basketball, football, soccer, any sport a child plays, they always dream about playing in front of thousands if not millions of fans. Out of ever child with that dream, only a few hundred make it to play in their respective sport. As a child though, no one ever tells you that you can't do it, or to change your focus. They build the dreams up to the point that when it doesn't happen (which happens more often than it does happen), a young adult is completely lost.

I still love sports, I love to watch, to play to talk about sports. I even was extended the chance to play football for a local Semi-Pro team out of Statesville. This could have been one of the greatest things to have happened to me. But I am not going to play. I would love to, but I know that I need to still further remove myself from that game which I love to this day more than anything outside of my family.

I have been told that I needed to find out who I AM now. A very wise woman gave me that advice and I have been trying to listen to it. I have spent time thinking about who I really am, what makes me who I am. What I value and what I could care less about. I am trying to surround myself with positive people, and people who have common interests with me. I have only been on my journey of self discovery for a short time, but I have made some MAJOR advancements. Even with that, I know that I have a long way to go before I really know who I am. It will probably take all of my life, but I am striving to have a better understanding of me.