What They Don't Tell You

I know what you must be thinking: haven’t seen a blog from Sami in a while, she must be incredibly busy living her amazing life and doing some super cool things. You would be very shrewd for making such an observation. You would also be very wrong. My life has lacked a certain element of excitement lately; instead it has been a little… what’s the word, what’s the word, oh right—boring. Don’t get me wrong, my life is still probably exponentially more thrilling than yours, but you will have to forgive me for having higher expectations than that (I make fun of you only to feel better about myself).  And I am not really a fan of writing just for the sake of writing. However, some of you have proven to be quite pesky as of late, and oddly enough, your annoying persistence for an update cultivated a desire to write, if only to shut you up. I spoil you, I know.

Since there are no Paris trips to recount or rewarding games to narrate, I will not be writing about my humdrum life of late; instead, this will be an insightful editorial about this enchanting and isolated profession I have chosen as a European hooper (as you’ll see, this is not just a job, it’s a lifestyle). I know I make it seem pretty glamorous, but living overseas definitely has two sides. I interviewed myself—don’t worry I asked the tough questions—hopefully to establish a clearer image of what the past 6 months have been like, and perhaps, with a little bit of luck, what the next 4-5 years will continue to resemble. So here it is, the untold story of life abroad.

Of course there is the obvious: Europe (and any country I live in here) is not my home—I am not a native. This has countless lingering implications, but only one has been especially impactful. Sure, not everyone speaks English, you generally don’t know where you are or how to get wherever it is you are trying to go (the only street name I know is the one I live on), and yes, sometimes you have to just be okay with not knowing what you’ve ordered; but none of these things surprise or trouble me. What has frustrated me is the underlying paradox—the subtext of these conditions—that the incredible independence both craved and realized the moment you pack up your life and move to whatever country, is almost instantly crippled by the inescapable dependency innately built into living overseas. Grocery shopping, getting to and from practice, mailing a package, going to the bank—suddenly you are 8 years old and can’t even walk across the street without someone holding your hand. I hate it of course, but I can ‘t deny that I needed the guidance. 

Naturally this doesn’t last forever, depending on the size of the city and where you live in it, it’s just a matter of time before you know how to get around on your own. Still, every new city is met with this reliance period, rather than a honeymoon phase. It’s almost comical and it’s certainly ironic how hastily this changes with time, leaving you habitually alone, missing the dependency you were so anxious to ditch. As cool as I thought I was, a couple weeks of just me and needing an escort to get me around suddenly isn’t looking so bad, ya know? This brings me to my next subject—time.

I practice 2x a day totaling around 4 hours. I lift 3x a week for an hour. Once a week I have an hour German lesson. Once a week I help coach 10 year olds (and by help, I mean I stand on the side and cheer cause they don’t speak English). Generally speaking, this means 18-19 hours of every day for me is wiiiiiiiiiiide open. Naturally I sleep and eat like a normal person, but everyday there is still about 6 hours of time unaccounted for between practices, time I need to fill. Sounds great doesn’t it? Indeed this would be fantastic if there were things to do and people to do them with. But I am in an old city in Germany, so this actually becomes a bit arduous creating things to do each day. I read and watch movies. I play my guitar. I nap more than any person my age should nap. When Sam and Sid were here, I would follow them to the mall and watch them shop, but it’s rather cold out now and I hate trying on clothes.  I check my email and Facebook 30 times a day—seriously, it’s pathetic, I know, but I justify this with the significant time difference and feel mildly better about myself. Mildly. By the 30^th “check”, you start to lose respect for yourself no matter the justifications. Speaking of the time difference and the internet, we can now move to the next query of my days—communication.

People forget sometimes that the Internet is my only legitimate way of communicating with anyone that I can’t talk to in person. Maybe you can imagine how this might affect my relationships, both the firmly established ones as well as the potential for creating new ones. Don’t get me started on dating; I can go ahead and put that on the back burner for a while. Who wants to date the girl that can’t tell you where she will be in 5 months. So, my relationships develop into a series of choppy, interrupted Skype sessions where at least one of us is always just getting up or just going to bed, or an ongoing stream of emailing. Ah email, text messaging’s inept cousin. Nothing is worse than an unanswered email, and the insecurities it harbors. And while lack of communication certainly curtails my relationships, it still isn’t the toughest restriction or the most disheartening.

I miss everything…literally. I am never around. I miss birthdays, weddings, funerals, holidays, sporting events and parties, baby showers, graduations, reunions, alum games (I know, I made one) watching friends coach games, watching friends play games, engagements, break-ups, and most other relevant life milestones and celebrations. And every time I come back, it’s harder and harder to squeeze my way back into these people’s lives. Some people run out of room for me, some people run out of time, and others simply run out of things to say. It’s surprisingly easy, you realize, to forget and to be forgotten. Simply put, people grow accustomed to life without you, and who can blame them. I am gone for 8-9 months and home for 3-4, splitting time between Seattle and Ventura. It becomes increasingly difficult to not feel like a temporary inconvenience in their lives while I am home, demanding their time and attention until I pack up and disappear again. This might be my least favorite part about living overseas. These relationships are all I’ve got, and each time I leave and come back it feels like I’ve got a lot less. This leads me to my final item—how long will this last.

One injury could end it all. One tough season and you are old news. One error in judgment, one misstep and you can be fired, so who knows how long I will be playing. This is not a forgiving profession—like anything else it is a business where your performance is all that counts. No one cares if you are trying your best or working overtime, they simply care if you are producing. I love it, but it’s a little unsettling knowing some things you can’t control. I choose to ignore this and savor every day that I get to play basketball for a living, even if that day is my last.

 

This sort of reads like a downer, but I assure you that is not my intention. I am exactly where I want to be. I am not looking for a reminder of how fortunate I am, nor do I need one. I tell myself 10x a day. I just thought it might be interesting to underline the less sensationalized side of this lifestyle, the things that are maybe less obvious and more mundane, but boast sizeable relevance in my daily life. I guess I wanted to demonstrate there are both amazing rewards and very real sacrifices, ones that I am only just grasping. I’d still choose this over anything else everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. And God willing, I plan to for the next 260 Sundays. 

This is my nightmare.

As you know, we had a game in Freiburg before we went on break. I was both dreading this game and looking forward to it. I mentioned previously why I was excited about it, so now I’ll tell you why I wasn’t. Overseas travel, in my league at least, is not like college. We don’t fly everywhere, we don’t stay in hotels and we don’t eat catered meals. We bus everywhere and we eat the nearest fast food we can find. Additionally, we don’t stay in hotels because we leave the morning of our game and drive back directly after in order to save money. I’ll remind you that most of our opponents are around 6 hours away by bus. We stop to eat, we stop to pee, and we stop when the bus driver needs a break. These rides are painfully exhausting. We leave at 9am and get back at 6am the following morning most times. Well, Freiburg is one of our longer road games, so it was about a 7-hour trip there, all stops included. That isn’t even the real challenge, though. It’s not like we are driving 7 hours then jumping off the bus to site see—no no. We have to now play a game, which after being in a seated or balled up position for 7 hours, is not as easy as you might think. Anyways, the game started well for us and we were in control most the first half until the final couple of minutes. We went into half down 4 after leading by 10. The second half was inexplicably opposite. We turned the ball over a ridiculous amount of times and when we didn’t, we missed our shots. Defensively we were just as bad. They blew us out in the second half and we lost by 24. I had 3 turnovers compared to my 8 last time against this team, but we still lost. Our next game is our Cup game on Sunday. We play Wasserburg who is actually in our league and we play there. 

If losing wasn’t bad enough, directly after the game I was informed that I had been chosen for the random drug testing that they’d be administering in 5 minutes. How fortunate. Nothing cheers me up like peeing in a cup. I made it 4 years of college without once being drug tested, and my first year overseas I get picked. Of course in college, drug testing wasn’t as random as they'd like you to think. Still, I am the worst candidate for any testing that requires urinating in a cup, particularly after physical activity. First of all, I sweat an inordinate amount. Seriously, I sweat just thinking about working out. Furthermore, I drink next to nothing during games cause I hate when I can feel the water 

swooshing around in my belly. Very distracting. 

So right after a game, I am in no condition to be producing urine. Somehow, I didn't think they'd empathize. And so, I was introduced to my chaperone, the woman that would monitor me until I was finished giving them the sample they needed. Wherever I went, she followed; those are the rules. Remember that, there will be a quiz later.  I wasn’t familiar with this protocol, so it had me a little flustered at first—I find being followed and stared at can be disconcerting. After filling out some paper work, my lady handed me a cup and led me to the bathroom... and followed me inside. There really is no way to slyly pull down your pants and pee in front of someone watching you. After handing her the cup and washing up I hear my lady sort of sneer behind me. Evidently there is a minimum requirement—90ml—and I didn’t meet it. I bet you can’t guess how much I…made. 19ml. Yup. So now I have to sit, in my gross jersey, in this waiting room chugging sparkling water and sodas until I think I might explode. This is my nightmare. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. It soooooo did. 

It had been 2 hours now (that's right, 2 HOURS) when my coach, irritated by my inability to pee, was trying to expedite the process, suggested I shower while waiting. Normally they don’t like to allow this, but since I was taking so long they made an exception. Quiz time. Anyone remember that fun little rule I told you about earlier. Turns out, it applies to showers, too. I don’t even know how to properly describe to you this impossibly awkward “situation”, as I am referring to it. It’s this lady and me in a very empty, very open locker-room shower. There is zero room to hide. The only thing worse than her eyes glued to me is the silence. Surely nothing could be worse than this—and then I opened my mouth. “One of the perks of the job, huh?” Yeah, I really shoulda just enjoyed the silence. Fortunately, right after I showered I had to pee like 3 of those cups so we were able to leave quickly. Never. Again. 

Our new PG is here, finally. Not the girl it was originally supposed to be, though. Instead, an American that played for Ohio State (and when I say played, I don’t mean much). Still, Ohio State is very good, so I am thinking she can’t be bad. We begin practice again tomorrow night. It has really sucked coming up with workouts to do alone these past 10 days, so practice will be nice-- ya know, the way throwing up when you are sick can be nice. Sure, it's awful, but you can't deny you feel better after. 

Remember awhile back when the club took action shots of us, but the one they chose for me was very unactiony. Well, it seems they decided to amend that error in judgment and they selected a new picture. Ya know I was slightly embarrassed before with the original one they picked, but now… now I got nothing to worry about. I think as a gift, to thank them for this, I’ll get them a dictionary, maybe with some illustrations.

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe new years celebration. 2011 was pretty incredible, but I hope everyone’s 2012 is even better.