When you have been working towards an event for months, with no other object on your mind, you may become fixated on the outcome of that event. When it is not just you working towards this event, but an entire team, it means so much more to everyone involved. The event in this case was the Ivy League Indoor Heptagonal Championships, and the team was my track team. We had trained for months and months and put it all on the line last weekend. Unfortunately the result was not what we had hoped for. Out of the eight teams there, Yale finished eighth.
Emotionally, we were all pretty much a wreck. It was not surprising that many of the girls had tears in their eyes. However, a few, when asked about their performance, could only laugh. Now at first glance, it may be seen as though they did not care about the results from this weekend. Some might even call them indifferent. But this was not the case. They were using their laughter as a coping mechanism for helping them through such a disappointing weekend. Most of us were in shock at just how horribly we had performed. All the pent up excitement and tension leading up to the weekend should have been released in a joyful manner. However, due to our last place finish, this emotion could not be released in an explosively cheerful manner. It was still released through laughter, but this laughter contained the exact opposite meaning of joy.
A non-team member may not have understood exactly where this laughing was coming from. But to each other, our laughter seemed natural and even expected. We were laughing in disbelief. In a way, our laughter helped us see the weekend as a dream. It placed the events in an unreal state, because dealing with the reality of the situation would have been too painful at that moment. Our laughter was shared between each other and helped us sympathize with the disappointment we were all feeling. It was a testament to our bond as teammates to be able to understand one another on this deeper level. Laughter allowed us to move on past the frustration of the meet and look towards the next one.
