REDISCOVERING A HAPPY LIFE
STAR NETBALLER MADISON BROWNE IS AT THE TOP OF HER GAME AFTER A LIFE-CHANGING YEAR OFF THE COURT.
THE 31-YEAR-OLD OPENS UP ABOUT DIVORCE AND INJURY IN A REVEALING FEATURE IN
WHICH IS OUT TOMORROW
“AS challenging as 2019 was, I am the happiest I have been in a very long time. It makes me wonder what it will feel like when things are really, really good.
This year has been a rollercoaster ride.
I don’t cry a lot, but I’ve shed tears with strangers. It got to a point where I was so broken, the only thing for me to do was build myself from the core.
In January, my life was sorted. I had a great summer, was back in pre-season training and was putting a lot of my energy into netball.
But things soon changed. In February, I separated with my husband of five years. I’d been with him for 10 years — all of my 20s. A month and a half went by without anyone at the club knowing that we’d separated, except for my sister, of course. I didn’t know how to navigate through it.
In March, I injured my anterior cruciate ligament in my right knee, which ended my season before it began.
It felt like my identity was taken away. I was a wife, then I wasn’t. I was a netballer and a captain, then I wasn’t.
I had a new place, I changed my last name back to Browne and I reconnected with people.
In June, I went to Europe by myself. From chats with strangers on the beach, having drinks with staff at the bar after hours, island-hopping escapes, sitting on communal tables and not being on my phone, to days where I would be solo scooting down the Amalfi Coast in Italy.
When you’re on the other side of the world, everything else seems so insignificant.
My parents say the old bubbly, energetic, glowing Madison is back.
I recently heard about kintsugi. It’s a Japanese art form where they put broken pottery back together, but instead of covering the cracks and the flaws, they highlight them.
That is me. I’m kintsugi. I have been broken and I’ve had to piece myself back together.”