To keep it short and simple: it sucks. The pain of letting go of something that means so much just doesn’t dissipate with time. The pain lingers and stays with you every passing moment.

For athletes, playing the game isn’t just about going through the motions. It is literally a way of life. We literally eat, sleep, and breathe the sport. We wake up, go to lift, go to class, go to practice, eat dinner, do homework, sleep, and repeat. The grueling schedule is all worth it because of the family we’ve created. Coach becomes mom and teammates become sisters.

But what happens when all of a sudden, you’re told you can’t play anymore? What happens when everything you’ve ever known is taken away from you?

You wake up in the morning, and don’t go to lift. You go to class still wearing the clothes of your team. After class, you go back to your room – you don’t have practice. And that’s when the pain hits the hardest. All you want is to see your family, to hang out with them and play the sport you love. But no, that is no longer possible. You aren’t on the roster. But in your mind, you are still on the team; you are still apart of the family, just more distant now.

Every day brings a new battle. You must experience a new type of life – one without sports. Your friends try to assure you that things will get better, but you continuously doubt them. Why? Because there is a hole in your heart. A hole that you aren’t sure can ever be repaired. It hurts more than the worst breakup you’ve ever been through. It hurts just as much as losing a close relative or friend. It hurts like hell. There is no band-aid to repair it. Every day you walk by your teammates on campus, the wound opens again. You wish you could be back on the field, running those 30-minute fartleks. You remind yourself you can’t, and you try to close the open wound, just for it to reopen again the next time you see your team.

To the athlete whose career was cut short, I feel your pain. My career was cut short, and my heart was cut open.