Forever - Christian Yelich

Burnt Out.

Christian~

"Dude, this year has been crazy for you. Beautiful wedding, beautiful baby," Jared says as he and I do a podcast at our dining table. 

"Yeah, it's been something. The wedding is all on Brooklyn, her and her friend planned it with the help of our moms. I didn't expect at the beginning of this year for it to be this crazy."

"Was he planned?"

"Kayden? I think it was more like if it happens, it happens. We just kind of let it happen and let life take its course."

"He's adorable and probably the cutest baby ever."

"Thanks, man. It's something to adjust to." I look over to Brooklyn where she sits up with Kayden on the couch. He's become so alert lately, trying to hold his head up, and has been looking at us and recognizing our voices. 

"Well back to baseball and the upcoming season, are you worried that either of you'll become burnt out to the point where you just don't want to play? How excited are you to be back playing after having yet another good run just falling short?"

"I've said this a million times but everyone has that like two-week stretch where they just suck and you don't know why. We've both been burnt out enough where we can both handle it and get over it. That's why both of us are taking as much time to spend with Kayden right now during the offseason because we know that there won't be much 'family' time. He's obviously traveling with us and all that. But just the nights we get now, won't happen in the season. The time isn't always there during the season. But next season, yeah, I think we all are still hungry for that big win again. We know we're capable of it, we just have to put our heads together and get through the tough series."

"Hey, Brooklyn come join the pod! I want to hear your perspective of working for a Major League team. We've never had someone on the pod who works closely with the guys." She scrunched up her face before getting up and coming over by me. I hand her another headset as she gets settled with Kayden in her lap. 

"Okay, so for everyone who doesn't know, this is Brooklyn, Christian's wife, and is also the Head Athletic Trainer for the Brewers. Going back to feeling burnt out, how does it affect you when he's burnt out or even if you're burnt out?"

"Personally, it's a lot of mental stuff to think through. It's usually toward the end of the season where I just get burnt out with work. But from my perspective of him getting burnt out is more on the 'what can I do? Do you want me to help?' type of spectrum. We don't really let each other deal with it alone because it is so mental and me especially I just get in my head about certain things."

"Did you play sports in high school?"

"Oh, yeah. Three-sport athlete, volleyball, basketball, softball year-round."

"Dude, have you seen her play at the California Strong softball games? She kicks ass."

"That's right, I do remember those. Anyway being a three-sport athlete in high school, mentally how challenging was it? I only ask you because he's gonna give us a short answer," Jared says pointing at me. 

She laughs, "There were definitely times after practices I would go out to my car and just cry because I was so mentally and physically burnt out from all of the practices we were doing. I'll be honest, it mostly happened during the fall for volleyball, but we sucked as a team. There was no communication, the coach was an ass, and we weren't a team. A normal day in high school for me was waking up at 5, go to a morning practice at 5:30 - 6:45 which would be strength and conditioning. Then I would go back home to get ready. School started at 7:45 and got done at 3:15. Then I would go to practice again from 3:30 to 5:30 or 6. If I was feeling up to it, or just because I needed to escape reality and blow off steam I would go to the gym for another hour after that, and I would lift the entire time. Then go home, eat dinner, do any homework that was due the next day and go to sleep just to do this all again the next day. I say this now and realize how much I was beating myself up, for no reason. I had no reason to be doing that to myself because it wasn't necessarily helping the team. Me? Yeah, I was definitely a better player because I pushed myself to be better than the others.