March 2024

Barcelona, Loneliness, Family Visit and Birthday

Ciutadella Park in Barcelona

Welcome back to another edition of Dodson Diaries!

Thank you all for the continuous support of my newsletter. I decided to include a voiceover of the newsletter that can be listened to as well you can find above. It is slightly different than the written version, so feel free to check it out!

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This month, I am writing about my trip to Barcelona, loneliness overseas, my family visiting and my birthday. As always, I hope you enjoy it!

Barcelona

We have two national team breaks during the season, usually in November and February. People who represent their country go back home and either practice or play in games for the Olympics, for example. I decided to go to Barcelona, now one of my favorite European cities. It was a full circle moment because my coach, who coached me during my freshman year of high school, lives there. I was able to stay and explore the city with her. Barcelona has something to offer for anything you might want. It has the city, nightlife, beach, museums, unique cuisine, parks, restaurants, and a distinct culture. For a city, it has stunning nature available on the outskirts like Montjuc Mountain. Witnessing Antoni Gaudi’s architecture in person was amazing. His most famous work, La Sagrada Familia, is still being built 100 years after its conception which is unbelievable to think how much detail was put into the church. Also, I would walk down a normal street and see an architectural wonder next to the normal buildings. I loved how these wonders were interconnected with the city.

Casa Batlló is another famous building created by Gaudí.

La Boqueria is a famous tourist attraction because it’s an outdoor market with various fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, and other things. I found this fascinating because it isn’t common, even for people with money in the US, to have easy access to fresh and quality food on that scale and daily. It is disheartening to think about the food people have access to back home, especially if they are of lower socioeconomic status when I see places like La Boqueria overseas. I hope this aspect of the European lifestyle can make it to the United States.

Loneliness

I don’t want to give the impression that playing overseas is always a positive experience. I think my previous newsletters can give the perception that it is. Moving forward with my newsletters, I want to emphasize the challenges and sacrifices. While I believe that my challenges have been minimal compared to others, they are there, and I want to be more cognizant about addressing them.

One of the major challenges faced overseas is loneliness. Most female basketball players spend around 6-8 months overseas not including playoffs. Last year, I played in Poland for 6 months. I didn’t feel lonely all the time, but there were times when loneliness would come, like any other person, but it felt magnified overseas due to the distance, the time difference, cultural differences and not having a community of family and/or friends near. The most lonely I ever felt during my time there, and I would argue ever in my life, was during the December holiday season. Most players do not have the option to go home for Christmas because of games. This was the first time I was not home for Christmas and it was a very sad day. I spent the day alone in my hotel room (I lived in a hotel room for 6 months a story for another newsletter). I decided to buy some cookies and milk as a way to cheer myself up, but it wasn’t successful. I remember staying alone in my room all day and trying to enjoy from afar on video call my family’s Christmas celebration.

Then, New Year’s was starting the same way. I hoped that my teammates would like to do something, but no plans were made. I forced myself to go to the New Year’s dinner downstairs. I watched others there with their family and tried not to cry and enjoy the food to no avail. Even though I had no one to go out with and there were no events I knew of going on, I decided to walk to the city center. I am so happy I did. I started the New Year enjoying fireworks with my parents on FaceTime (what would we do without our parents?). Looking back to this time, it was a turning point for me. Overseas by yourself, you have to learn how to combat this loneliness. I truly think if I stayed in my hotel room on New Year’s as well, I would have become depressed about being away from home. Being with all those people enjoying the fireworks made me feel less alone.

Family Visit

My family visited me for ten days in February and we had a great time. It was the first time my brother visited Spain, so I was happy he made the trip. I am fortunate that my family has the means to visit me while I'm overseas. Since I do not go home until after the season is over, it helps me not feel homesick if I know my parents are coming to visit soon. It was fun to explore and share the place I have been calling home with them. My favorite memory was being able to drive them to Gernika in my manual car. The day before they left, they saw me play at home which I enjoyed. It was touching that before the game all my teammates went over to say hello and introduce themselves to them. We won the game, so they must have been our good luck charm.

Birthday

My birthday was February 16th, and while it wasn’t the most eventful, I had a great day. We had morning practice before we drove 7 hours for our away game the following day. One thing about playing in Spain, you have to get used to long bus rides to away games. Flying is usually never an option. I wasn’t expecting to do anything memorable, but my teammates surprised me on the bus. We had a birthday “feast” and they sang “Happy Birthday.” The fact that they would take the time to put everything together even when we had a road trip shows how thoughtful they are. I felt so grateful that my birthday was spent playing the sport I love with my team or “Spanish family”.

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Thank you for taking the time to read my newsletter! Please let me know your thoughts on the voiceover or the newsletter in general. Until next month :)