Ultimate-Related Things

I'm sitting at a meeting with the other UPA (Ultimate Players Association) national directors, as well as the UPA's competition director and assistant director. We are meeting to go over competition-related things for the 2008 college and club series. I believe this is the 6th time that I have attended this meeting. It's changed a bit since the first year I was the NWD (National Women's Director), but all in all it's the same. I have found a common theme when I come out to this meeting--I generally come out of the meeting excited. In some ways excited about doing my NWD job better, in some ways excited to just be around folks who play Ultimate (the Board of Directors is here as well).

This is the first meeting that I have attended since retiring (in fact, I still have trouble with that word). I don't feel as "little" as I thought I would...and what I mean by that is there are some very talented players who are here, and I don't feel compelled to mentally compare myself--in terms of playing ability--to them. I know that I can no longer play at the highest competitive level. I think that I am so much more comfortable with being "retired" then I thought I was. It doesn't mean that I won't be playing, and it doesn't mean that I won't find something else that I do with the time void that not playing Ultimate will leave me.

So remind me in the summer and into the fall that I do this work as the NWD because I am still a part of Ultimate, because I love Ultimate, and because what Ultimate gave to me needs to be repaid somehow.