The Path Isn’t Always Clear

 

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

“I can’t go, Mom!”

“Just tell her I broke my leg or something. Please!”

“Come on, we are going to be late, if you don’t hurry up”,sighed my mom.

As I am tying up my soccer cleats, my nail breaks. This is already a bad sign. I race to the car; my heart is pounding I can’t hear myself think.

We arrived. I put one foot in front of the other and sprint to the field. The coach hands me a deep blue piny with a giant number five on it. I put it on; it hasn’t been washed in a while. The stench of strangers sweat and a hint of mold fills my nose. I start walking towards my friends but the coach blows her obnoxious whistle and all the players come pouring into the middle of the field. She explains how her assessment is going to be, but most of all she wants us to have fun. As if anyone can have fun while being critiqued on their every move. The fun begins. Its blue vs red.

I step onto the pitch. All of the sudden the world starts spinning, my hands are sweating and I’m not sure if I remember how to walk. The herd of parents start chanting.

“Go Alana!”

“Shoot the ball!”

“Who was that pass to?”

The ball comes to me; I know what to do. I see an open number. “Ya Melissa!” I kick the ball with such power its perfect. I got this in the bag, I’m making this team no problem.

Its a rainy Saturday evening.  I need this phone call now! “I can’t wait anymore! The suspense is killing me!” My Mom comes down the stairs with the phone is her hands. It’s for me.

I answer. “Hello?”

A sympathetic voice replies, “Hi, is this Hailey?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, hi Hailey. Unfortunately you didn’t make the team. Better luck next year. Bye.”

Tears erupt from my eyes. How did I not make this team? All of my friends made this team. I’m the only one. My Mom explains to me, “There is another team in Port Moody you can try out for.”

“But I don’t want to leave my friends behind!”

I try out just as a practice for next year. I wasn’t even nervous; I didn’t care if I made this team or not.

The coach arrives, she gives us the same boring speech and then we start playing.  It’s about ten minutes into the tryout when the best player here goes for a shot and blasts the ball right at my stomach. I fall over but I quickly get back up and keep playing.

Before I knew it the tryout is over. That was actually fun! The girl who kicked the ball at me just so happened to be the coach’s daughter, they both came up to me and apologized for her shot. “Don’t worry about it, It’s fine, I barely even noticed”

“Good job tonight ,Hailey”

“Thank you”

The next day my Mom gets an email.

“HAILEY, you made the team!”

“Awesome…. But what about my friends?”

“You’ll make new friends.”

“Ok, I guess I’ll do it.”

I show up for practice the next week. The whole team is so nice! It’s so easy to make new friends with all of these girls. It feels like a weight has been lifted off of me and I can have fun playing soccer. After a while the coach from the other team calls me, and is desperate to have me on her team. Now it’s my turn to say no. Revenge is sweet! 

From this experience, I learnt to never give up.  If you are determined and work hard you can always reach your goals and taking risks can mean new friends.  Just sometimes the path to the goal has some detours.

 

I did well on organizing my thoughts and having a strong personal voice.

I need to improve on combining sentences and having less awkward sentences.