Related Content
•
CoSIDA.com/CoSIDA360 Archive
This story is part of our January 2022 CoSIDA 360 package, to view more stories,
click here.
From the Desk of CoSIDA President Cindy Potter
by Cindy Potter – 2021-22 CoSIDA President
Columbia College (Mo.), Senior Deputy Director of Athletics @CougarCanuck
Just like so many others across the world, I have really struggled these past two years. Nothing has been harder than the last six months. If you're reading this, you can probably relate that the 2021-22 academic year has been far from smooth and effortless.
During a Las Vegas convention site visit this past October, the CoSIDA staff and I were speaking about just how hard the Fall had been to that point and how it was not going to get any easier any time soon. For many, our day to day has drastically changed from what it was in early 2020 and our profession has taken a serious hit. From veterans leaving the profession to pursue other opportunities to some of the best leaving this world — none of this has been easy.
None of this is news to any of you, in fact you may have already stopped reading with the assumption that I'm going to tell you how to be positive and not complain about everything that's on your plate. Instead, I want to tell you about something that happened to me this fall and made a profound impact on my life, well the Cliffs notes version of it at least!
Right before the pandemic hit, Feb. 13, 2020, to be exact, my six-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. This obviously changed my whole family’s life and lifestyle…but then the pandemic hit. It was a sudden slap in the face that not only was COVID-19 extremely scary, but now we had a child that was at high risk who we barely had learned to care for. I usually have no issues falling asleep but during that time I got very little sleep for fear something would happen to her in the night and I wouldn’t hear the alerts to save her. I buried myself in work and the kids, sleeping just 4-5 hours a night as my husband went to work like normal, day in and day out. I lived in an unhealthy place, emotionally and physically. Some of that hasn’t changed.
As things started to open later in the year and into 2021 I continued to focus on work and the kids. There were a lot of very hard times, personally and professionally. I was not a happy person but I got really good at pretending I was, and that everything was okay. Of course, those closest to me knew that I was struggling, but without the option to travel home, I struggled alone for the most part. I also chose to struggle alone because I didn’t want most people to know. But if you asked me, I would have told you the truth.
Despite a long trip in the summer of 2021 to my happy place, Disney, I still struggled to feel like I was living and not just going through the motions of each day, counting down the minutes until I could sit and mindlessly watch something while working on emails, spreadsheets, or eligibility. But on a random day in the early fall, a disagreement with longtime friends turned hateful towards me, and it changed me.
Immediately following that disagreement, I blamed myself for everything. Irrational things that I couldn’t control, I thought it was all on me. That was easier for me to accept and easier to move on from than blaming someone else. I don’t do confrontation, so I’d rather lie and say it’s my fault than deal with it any other way.
As the weeks went on, this was not something I was able to get away from. It consumed me and was painful. About a month later, working at my computer late at night, it finally hit me. I had changed. I changed my priorities, my focus, my routines, my goals. I was a different person than I was before the pandemic, before Type 1 Diabetes, and before I had a change in boss and job duties.
I had stopped doing things just because others wanted me to do them or thought I should. I stopped explaining myself and instead just started saying no. Unfortunately for me, those changes were perceived as not caring about anyone else, not being present and only trying to give my kids an advantage over others. I blamed myself for another person’s perception of me until I realized I cannot control that. If the changed me does not meet someone else’s expectation or need, it’s simply time to step away.
So maybe that was the extended Cliffs notes version, but I promise I have a point for writing this.
The pandemic changed all our jobs and forever changed college athletics. Whether you have been in the profession for two years or 20 years, you’ve seen some drastic changes in your job. The one thing that never changed is the long hours and dedication you must have to make it work for you. This work is not for everyone, but just because the work changes or you change, doesn’t mean you can’t continue to love what you do. Life is too short to be unhappy. So in 2022 I hope you choose to surround yourself with positive people and work that lift you up and fill your bucket because people change, things end and life still goes on.
Cindy
Talk about these stories on the
CoSIDA Slack Community.