I have only experienced difficulty adjourning from a group which I was involved on one occasion. Growing up and through undergrad I played sports year round. The main sport that I excelled in was fast pitch softball. Adjourning from my team at the end of each season was a bit tough. When I was younger, the emotions related to adjourning were not as intense as when I grew older. This is likely because when I played sports at a young age I had other sports to look forward to, and often I had the same teammates from one sport to the next.
At an older age playing in college, the last game of my senior year was challenging. This is because I was aware of the end of my athletic journey as well as the camaraderie that I had formed with my teammates over the previous four years of my experience. Each season our team set out to accomplish the same goals, to win our division and our conference. We all had sight of this goal and learned to work together in attempt to achieve it. Along the way there was much adversity to overcome such as injuries, competition within the team, or individual conflicts amongst teammates, but we depended on each other for success. So ultimately if we wanted to achieve our goals we had to work out our struggles to the best of our ability.
Despite the internal challenges that my teammates and I faced, it was difficult to let go of the relationships that I had built as well as the feeling of belonging that I had with particular group of people. We all shared the same passion for this particular sport and worked equally as hard to reach a desired outcome. I do believe high performance groups in this sense are not easy to walk away from.
What I did appreciate about the adjournment period was the acknowledgement of each participant of the team at the end of their senior year. This along with the memorabilia left us with something to hold on to from the group and share with others.
It is important to have closure to finalize an experience, including in this master’s program. I believe that we have come to know each other through discussion and blog pots and hopefully can attend the graduation ceremony together at the end of the program.
