I belong to a beautiful tribe of women. We descend for a long line of warrior women who embrace the bow and arrow. We hail from a variety of backgrounds; we are professionals, parents, and partners. We nurse, program, teach, organize, research, architect, and enforce. We wear many hats, but we all share a love for our sport and the prices paid to participate.
The last few years challenged our time in archery—throwing our ability to compete and practice into disarray. Some worked more, some less. Others pulled back to protect their health. New personal relationships formed. Others ended. Some of us suffered under the weight of our own expectations and the grind of it all. Grief touched a lot of our lives. The shock of it all forced us to stop. We found ourselves questioning how to do it all; why we do it all? Where do “we” fit into the chaos of our own lives? How can we choose archery when there is so much else going on?
Even with these storms of doubt and roadblocks to navigate, our love of the game didn’t fade. Yet we gather in small circles and whisper our questions, probing at our deepest fear, the voice that tells us it is time to give up, to find something new, to go back to living ordinary lives.
There is some temptation to giving up—more time with loved ones, new goals to pursue, fewer aches and pains, money in the bank—but archery doesn’t let go that easily. We find ourselves called to the line. We pick up our bows and find ourselves transported beyond the everyday, beyond ourselves. Behind the string, arrow knocked, target in sight, we breath in the moment. We pause. We take stock. We find confidence. We become ourselves. This is the feeling we chase, the one we long for, the one we pay almost any price to achieve.
Knowing the why doesn’t answer the question or tame our minds; we still don’t know the way forward only that we want to keeping going. Maybe not as we did before. But not walking away either. And we are in it, whatever form it may take, together.