When I initially started ‘Let’s Be Frank’, I wanted to make sure that I was writing authentically about my experience as an international netballer and an import within the West Coast Fever environment and broader Suncorp Super Netball League. Honesty is one of my core values, and I wanted that to come across to whomever might read my blog. However, that often comes with it’s challenges in terms of how much is appropriate to share around the day to day happenings within my environment as well as how much of my personal situation I want to actually share with you.
Last season, I particularly struggled to find something to write about week after week, (so I decided not to write anything at all) because I was not willing to share my West Coast Fever experience and/or my daily struggle. Asked to resume writing my blog post again last week, I am faced with the same challenge. What can I share and how much do I want to expose my current personal experience?
We have all found ourselves in an incredibly challenging time in our lives with the global pandemic that we are living through, however, my position as an import in SSN and being an English person currently residing in Australia, is throwing up daily hurdles to be clambered over and often just some brick walls to run head long into.
Professional sport and having the job title ‘athlete’ often allows you to operate in a different sphere to the rest of the working world, the hours are unconventional, the physical demands particularly are huge, the mental strain is unique, there is a shed load of travel, the list goes on and on. However, professional sport has not been immune to the current situation and has been dealt blow after blow to it’s kneecaps.
Professional sport is a dynamic and adaptive environment to work in so whilst the government were implementing restriction after restriction to try and limit the affects of COVID-19 in Australia, we pivoted and made adjustments to our environment to align with said restrictions, and were very much business as ‘usual’ up until last Monday, when we finally got locked out of our training facility. Whilst it was brilliant to have a routine and a job to go to each day up until that point, as the world was changing by the hour around us, my anxiety and panic over being in a place +7000km from home was sky rocketing.
International borders were progressively closing, and nations were issuing orders for their citizens to return home. A discussion one day to bring Sara (my fiancée) to Perth to be together during such uncertain times disappeared the next as Australia stopped allowing internationals in. Routes to get back to England where disappearing, as countries started to prevent travellers from transiting through and airline companies continued to pull flight after flight, restricting options even further.
Without a decision about what the SSN was doing and no guarantees of job security (when is there ever), the Clubs began to look into letting their international players return to their respective homes. My mind was made up and my intention was to return to England ASAP and be with my family if the opportunity was there. However, a call with my younger sister, who had been on a working holiday visa in Sydney, put more considerations onto my table. Having been made immediately redundant from her job, with the lease on her accommodation up within a week, the countdown to the state border restrictions coming in was ticking down from 24hrs, and flights back to Canada amounting to around $8k, my thought process and decision making became focussed on bringing her to me in Perth to try and solve the issues immediately in front of us. After she arrived safely before the restrictions came into force, I spent the next 24hr flip flopping between whether we should leave Perth or stay and trying to factor in what I did and probably more importantly, didn’t know.
If we both went back to England, we would be closer to family, support, and much of my stress and extreme anxiety about being isolated in Australia would be gone. I would, however, be putting my job and sole source of income at risk, as there was no guarantee that I would be able to get another visa or even be allowed back into Australia with the current restrictions in place for whenever the league would be rescheduled for. Finally, we would likely be increasing our chances of exposure to infection by travelling or even being stranded somewhere en-route with the unstable nature of travel at the moment.
The other option, of staying in Perth, unfortunately presented me with even more to be concerned and confused about. Choosing to stay would not guarantee my job and income, despite my best intention being to do the ‘right’ thing. However, my biggest concern was that I would be choosing to leave my fiancée in England, and isolated on her own as her work had shut down and she was cautious around going to isolate with her parents as they are both high risk.
I have always been a person who firmly believes in what is right and wrong and fair, those beliefs haven’t been especially helpful over the last week or so as unfortunately ‘fairness’ can not be factored into this equation. Life is about choices and I have regretted very few that I have made in my lifetime. This particular choice seemed like an impossible one as I could not factor what was best for all of the important people in my life into one choice. There was no right or a fair choice, but I made one to stay, that I will have to stand by.
The next couple of weeks we are on leave from all Club duties and I am very much looking forward to taking some time to give my head some space from the effects of making huge choices and not joining any more crisis calls on Zoom.
Houseparty chats only 😊
Frank x
Twitter & Instagram: @StcyJyneFrancis
