Get Hit: A Lesson on Becoming

By Delaney Couri

Now that the fall has started, its brought with it a glorious array of fall sports.

Football. Soccer. Volleyball. 

There's nothing better than a cool evening or hot midday spent with the smell of turf grass or stadium snacks filling the air and a team giving it their all.

Though I love pretty much all sports, I have a special place in my heart for volleyball because I used to play. This attachment mostly just means that, when I watch, I tend to scream obnoxiously at the court, encouraging players to “Go on two!” “Cover!” or call a ball “Out!” 

At a game I was attending last week, in the middle of a set, one of my favorite players was sitting in the back row, ready to defend an impending spike.

As the ball shot off of the opposing players hand, our player was slammed hard by the ball, which went ricocheting off of her upper arms and into the net. She was hit so hard that she fell backwards, completely unprepared as the ball fell to the floor and we lost the point.

I chuckled with the team as they helped her up, realizing that she was okay and though her defense was far from perfect, she was clearly in the right spot; after all, the ball didn’t fall on an empty court, but rather slammed into her with remarkable power.

Sometimes, in life, I feel a lot like that player. Things come at me so fast I have no time to react, and the consequences are often less than ideal, like a botched pass that loses the team a point. Also, just like that player, sometimes when this happens, I can do nothing but just take the hit and fall backwards, ending up on my butt in front of a whole crowd of people.

But just like that player, as much as the spike may have stung hitting her skin or the frustration may have been as she watched the ball careen away from its intended target, I know I am where I need to be not in spite of the hurt, but because of it. If I’m not being hit, I’m not in position. If I’m not in position, I’m not really playing the game.

When I started writing, I thought this blog was about me being in the right place, getting hit with insights as a way to learn and grow. But the more I read and the more I write, I realize that I am not in the right place. Rather, I am in the process of becoming in the right place because I’m getting hit. Getting hit is not something I should be proud of, thinking I put myself in the right place. The more valuable lesson seems to be that the right place, the place I need to be, have needed to be all along, is finding me. Getting hit is a gift that tells me where I need to be. And that place is right here.