I visited Gleneagles for the first time time this year at the weekend. It was bittersweet. You know that feeling when something is taken away from you? Even temporarily. Everyone knows it, everyone has experienced it, everyone has felt that feeling of frustration. I guess it’s only natural when you miss something. Fortunately I will return to a golf course, I will be able to practice again, I will be able to cycle, run and climb mountains again.
Golf fortunately isn’t only my job, it’s a hobby and it has given me so many opportunities to create the Hannah I am today. I miss practicing, I miss the never ending chase for perfection, I miss competing, I miss the nerves, I miss the anxiety, I miss the rush of blood, I miss the post round highs/lows. But simply, I miss just playing the game and the people I have met through the game. Right now I’m on a different journey just to tee that golf ball up again.
In one way I dealt myself these frustration cards. I could have ignored the ever increasing pain in my hip. I could have just tried to forget the pain and continue on. But it was time to sort it, time to dig deeper (literally) and really get to the route of the pain. From the moment of finding out what it was and creating a plan for how to fix it I knew frustration would come. Only I didn’t know how much I would use the word frustration, how much it would mean to me and how often I would actually feel every ounce of its definition.
I’ve been trying to normalise frustration, trying to rationalise it. But also trying to accept it and how it’s making me feel. It comes just now as I’m missing out on things I would normally be doing, tournaments are starting again in places I love to play and compete and I simply can’t, yet.
It also comes just now when I try and do something with rehab that felt so easy before. It’s almost like rebuilding from a clean slate, I’ll get there, and probably come back even stronger. I know I’ll feel this again in the coming months when I get my hands on my golf clubs again, I know I won’t be playing at the level I was right before surgery, but with a bit of patience, dealing with the frustration in the right way, and some hard work I’ll be back before I know it. It’s exciting to have such a shopping list of things I will need to work on when I get a club in my hands.
It’s not just me and my lack of golf, frustration can come from anything, anytime. I can guarantee everyone feels this. More so than ever just now possibly. With Covid and the frequent lockdowns every single one of us is missing out on things we want to do. We miss seeing friends and family, we miss travelling, we miss going to stadiums for sport or music, we simply miss ‘normal life’.
Have we all become more resilient due the pandemic, has it taught the entire population to not take things for granted? Has it given us all a chance to appreciate what we have in the here and now. I don’t know, but I know it has given us all a chance to really work out what means the most to us. Will we all understand frustration more and subsequently deal with it better in years to come? Probably.
Dealing with frustration is different for everyone. I’ve felt it before but never quite like I do just now. It’s ok to feel like this, it’s a natural human response. It’s just a matter of how we deal with it.
I’m very fortunate I have family, friends and medical professionals I can speak to, to help me deal with the frustration. It’s definitely helping and, again, something I think everyone should do. Speak out when something is hard, no matter how little it may seem to someone else. If it is affecting you, talk about it. I think I’m getting better at it, or at least it is a bit easier to speak out. Like in my first blog where I talked about asking for help, I think I’m already getting better at this. I think.
Frustration comes and goes, but the challenge remains the same.
It really is true, you never realise what you’ve got til’ it’s gone.