It took a pandemic for me to become truly happy
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to “sugarcoat” the current state of the world and the suffering caused by the global pandemic. The devastating loss of lives and the effect this has had on so many livelihoods is honestly tragic, but for me COVID-19 was the reset I didn’t realise I so desperately needed.
In May 2019, I lost my father to a GBM brain tumour at the age of 56, a mere 15 months after diagnosis. It was no secret that as the only girl I was Dad’s favourite. He was endlessly supportive and selfless, the type of parent who not only never missed a game but volunteered where he could. From coaching, umpiring and club president to Fire Captain at the local volunteer fire brigade in his later years. His sense of humour, enthusiasm and approachable manner allowed him to connect with anyone. This often meant that my brothers and I would be stuck at training for an extra hour until he had finished talking. It used to drive us mad but now I would give anything to have that back.
My way of coping with the passing of Dad was to just keep going. I continued to work absurdly long hours in my senior management position and play both footy and hockey up until I flew home to Western Australia three weeks later for his memorial. I was there for less than a week before I returned to Melbourne and went straight back into my normal routine. I didn’t allow myself time to think or feel anything, I continued to jump from one commitment to another. I thought I was fine and on the surface to most I appeared that way too.
Good news came a few months later when I was drafted to the GWS Giants, which meant a move from Melbourne to Sydney and knowing only one other player at the time. I can’t describe to you the sense of achievement and pride I felt after finally reaching what I had been working so hard towards. I didn’t even consider the cost of leaving behind the support networks I had made, many of which I then allowed to fade once I was interstate. This is a decision I would later come to regret.
I chose to leave my new teammates in the dark about Dad as I had come to realise the overwhelming discomfort talking about death adds to a room and I felt uncomfortable with others feeling sorry for me. I instead built a brand of being composed, dependable and professional and I didn’t want my personal circumstances to be seen as an excuse or weakness. Upon reflection, the irony in this is palpable. Instead, I continued to confide in the same one or two people I felt comfortable with; I can only imagine the toll this would have taken on them.
At the same time, I invested everything into someone and something that I so badly wanted to work. It broke down a week before the AFLW season was due to start. Once again, I didn’t process it properly, I didn’t have the capacity to. Rather, I pushed aside what I was feeling and threw my focus on the football opportunity which lay in front of me.
I made my debut in round one, which Mum made the journey to Sydney for. We won in what can only be described as torrential conditions but the hardest part of that day came long after the final siren. After spending the rest of the day with Mum, I dropped her back to her hotel and as soon as I left to drive home, I started crying. A part of me was upset that Dad couldn’t be there, but what hit me the most was imagining how Mum must have felt. I felt her loss more than my own because it was something I couldn’t control.
As any AFLW player will tell you, the season quickly becomes a blur and you have no time for anything else but footy. I became engrossed in a routine of game day, recovery, train, repeat. Before I knew it the back end of the season had rolled around, albeit cut short due to COVID-19. We lost our semi final to Melbourne by 3 points in the last minute of the game and I felt personally responsible for it. The season was cancelled a day later due to the pandemic but it didn’t change how I felt about the result of the game and the role I played in it.
With the situation surrounding COVID-19 worsening rapidly, I made the decision to head home for what I had intended to be a couple of weeks before returning back to my full time job in Melbourne. I ended up staying for just over two months, with only myself and Mum in regional WA. The first couple of weeks at home felt like a holiday, but it wasn’t long until the reality of everything that had occurred over the last 12 months started to play on my mind.
Despite being notorious for overthinking at the best of times, things were spiralling. I couldn’t sleep and was half present during the day being occupied by the thoughts and feelings I had buried so quickly in the past. I began to replay my decisions over the past 12 months. Starting from what I should have done in the last minute of that game, to finding new ways to blame myself for why things in my personal life didn’t work out. This progressed to me questioning whether I had ultimately made the wrong decision choosing to stay in Melbourne knowing that Dad didn’t have long. Despite being so sure of that decision at the time. I was so stuck in my own head, I felt anxious all the time and it was exhausting! Worst of all I felt guilty. I felt guilty that I hadn’t felt the way people expect you to when your dad dies. I felt guilty that I let trivial issues consume me when I was meant to be upset about Dad. Most of all, I felt guilty that I hadn’t been there to support and spend time with Mum over the past year, but the truth was; I didn’t know how to.
I know I can be pretty stoic at times, but I’m an open book compared to Mum. She has, and always will, put everyone else before herself despite what she may be going through. As selfish as this sounds, the thought of her not being ok terrified me. How do you help the person who has dedicated their whole life to putting your needs first? I tried reaching out to a few people at the time, but I wasn’t ready to admit that I was struggling and I certainly didn’t want to put what I was feeling on to Mum. Being isolated in WA, away from all my friends and usual escapes left me with few options but to address what was going on in my own head.
After getting over my own awkwardness and trying to tiptoe around Mum, I realised that whilst she was still grieving, she was genuinely doing ok and had begun to build a life without Dad. She was just happy to be spending time with me more than the usual two week “honeymoon” holiday, and we went through the strange experience of a pandemic together. A pandemic that has both made and broken relationships, but for us, it was the former. I spent time working on myself and letting go of everything that had been weighing on me so heavily. I learnt to be ok with not always having all the answers. I learnt that sometimes things don't make sense and things happen outside my control, whether I like it or not. I learnt to be ok with talking about my emotions and realised that it was neither an excuse nor was it a sign of weakness. Instead, it was a way for me to grow.
If it wasn’t for COVID-19 I know I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to reconnect with Mum. I would have continued to push aside anything I had been feeling and drown myself in my usual commitments. Worse still I would have continued to be oblivious to the fact that I wasn’t truly happy, what I was doing was merely surviving. I’m not saying that COVID-19 has brought good to this world, but for me it presented an opportunity to slow down, reflect and deal with everything I had been running from, and work out where I wanted to be running to.
