My time at Shippensburg Univerity has not been all sunshine and rainbows. A lot of the painful lessons I learned in high school have come in handy as I deal with these problems as an adult without my parents’ help.

For example, my parents never let me quit something I committed to. I played volleyball for my high school, and I participated in club volleyball during the offseason. This meant that while it was snowing outside, I practiced in climate-controlled gyms and traveled to tournaments on the weekend. My skills flourished during the club season, and I know I would not have been the varsity captain for my high school team without this experience.

And yet, club volleyball was one of the hardest things I ever did, and not just physically. I was on a team with another girl from my high school and other girls from the surrounding area. The year I played on that team I was not accepted by them, and it hurt me emotionally.

The other girls got along much better and hung out outside of practices. That is well and fair, but it became super hard to play with them because I was not in on their jokes. Learning they had a group chat without me was the cherry on top of this rough experience, and then hearing that my school teammate said I was not on her team. Ouch.

Still, no matter how much I cried or complained, my mom did not let me back out of the club. For one thing, club volleyball is very expensive. It would have been silly to not have me finish the last two months and lose hundreds of dollars for nothing. But also, this experience taught me so much self-control and restraint. I had to learn to separate my experiences with my teammates during club season and during school season. This is a practice that has helped me so much in college.

Everyone has people they don’t like, but for a lot of my classes, we have group projects. I have refined my ability to separate work and personal relationships and can function very well with people I dislike in the professional setting.

There are a lot of situations in life in which you cannot back out because of someone else. As a communication, journalism and media major, I study how to best work with others to get something I need. If someone whom I disagree with has access to something that would benefit my client, it would be silly for my personal issues to get in the way.

By toughing out one of the roughest team experiences of my life, I have grown. I know the same idea applies to everyone else. At this point in the semester, burnout is hitting and tensions are rising. It is important to separate work and personal issues and chose what to prioritize every day. You are stronger than you believe and you can weather any storm you encounter.

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