This is going to be a cathartic post. You have been forewarned.
It's so hard to explain how yesterday's disappointment played out on me. There was the initial shock and confusion of "is this really happening . . . I don't understand." When the confusion is cleared, then the onslaught of tears comes. Full on sobbing is just not attractive, but sometimes it hurts just too much knowing that your team has put in over hundreds of hours (this is no exaggeration) with blood, sweat and tears (I mean these quite literally. There has actually been blood shed, sweat produced and tears wept). From an outsiders point, yesterday, we may have looked like a sobbing mess of sore losers ("Why are you guys complaining? Isn't third place enough? You guys got first in Engineering Notebook and Spirit & Sportsmanship anyways. You guys have won for the past years.) They see me carrying around a First Place award while crying . . . and just don't understand. They don't understand that at this point that award only tells me that this is my compensation prize because the judges have let down the rest of my team.
Next, the stage of "I can't bring myself to care anymore." Cleaning up all of your hard work from over the course of six weeks is all the more difficult when the outcome is not what you expected. Yesterday afternoon, I almost just stood there and stared as the boys loaded up our U-Haul again. I could barely bring anything back to the U-Haul without feeling tears resurface. It was like watching all this work go into a waste bin.
The state of delirium. After we finished cleaning up and went through several bouts of wallowing, a group of us went to CiCi's Pizza. Since a couple of us got there early, we took a pit stop at PetCo where we comforted ourselves by looking at random cats and ferrets. At CiCi's, we ate way more than we should have and spent several hours ranting, laughing, crying and taking goofy pictures to send to our teacher sponsor. The full state of delirium set in when we ran off to Target to buy even more comfort food.
Now Reality is slowly setting in. I feel almost lost. I don't know what I'm going to do on Monday. My everything had been set on reaching this one goal at Regionals and then my energy was set out for State. But, now I must face reality and figure out how do school again. I need to figure out how to shift my goals, to figure out where to place my passion. . . I don't know what I'm going to do on Monday. . .
It's so hard to explain how yesterday's disappointment played out on me. There was the initial shock and confusion of "is this really happening . . . I don't understand." When the confusion is cleared, then the onslaught of tears comes. Full on sobbing is just not attractive, but sometimes it hurts just too much knowing that your team has put in over hundreds of hours (this is no exaggeration) with blood, sweat and tears (I mean these quite literally. There has actually been blood shed, sweat produced and tears wept). From an outsiders point, yesterday, we may have looked like a sobbing mess of sore losers ("Why are you guys complaining? Isn't third place enough? You guys got first in Engineering Notebook and Spirit & Sportsmanship anyways. You guys have won for the past years.) They see me carrying around a First Place award while crying . . . and just don't understand. They don't understand that at this point that award only tells me that this is my compensation prize because the judges have let down the rest of my team.
Next, the stage of "I can't bring myself to care anymore." Cleaning up all of your hard work from over the course of six weeks is all the more difficult when the outcome is not what you expected. Yesterday afternoon, I almost just stood there and stared as the boys loaded up our U-Haul again. I could barely bring anything back to the U-Haul without feeling tears resurface. It was like watching all this work go into a waste bin.
The state of delirium. After we finished cleaning up and went through several bouts of wallowing, a group of us went to CiCi's Pizza. Since a couple of us got there early, we took a pit stop at PetCo where we comforted ourselves by looking at random cats and ferrets. At CiCi's, we ate way more than we should have and spent several hours ranting, laughing, crying and taking goofy pictures to send to our teacher sponsor. The full state of delirium set in when we ran off to Target to buy even more comfort food.
Now Reality is slowly setting in. I feel almost lost. I don't know what I'm going to do on Monday. My everything had been set on reaching this one goal at Regionals and then my energy was set out for State. But, now I must face reality and figure out how do school again. I need to figure out how to shift my goals, to figure out where to place my passion. . . I don't know what I'm going to do on Monday. . .