An A for Effort

     Two years ago, at the start of the 2017 basketball season everything was looking great, I was going into my sophomore year and starting varsity for our high school girl’s basketball team. Things couldn’t have been better for me; until three days before our first away game in the gym at 9:30 in the morning when things took a really hard turn for me. It was a normal day, second period points class but today was game day and all the boys wanted to play handball, and of course all four of the girls in class; not wanting to be boring debbie downers decided to play AND play boys versus girls- worse decision all day. Picture it, three very uncoordinated girls and me versus three, very manly coordinated boys who don’t really care if they plow over a girl or not playing handball with very limited rules. Already the game was very, very unfair now all we need is for one of those boys to plow over a girl and it would be exactly how we all pictured it, right?

     Think about it, us four girls had no chance of winning that game at all, but I mean they say ‘A for effort’, well we got an A all right, but not for winning maybe for the effort part. Lets just say when it comes to a loose ball, 10 minutes before class is supposed to end, a very small girl and a boy who wouldn’t blink if said petit girl was behind him about to ruin her sophomore year basketball experience. Oh honey, you best believe that this girl is going to be getting that ball if it’s the last thing she does. Well it’s not the last thing I would ever do, but definitely the last thing I was going to be doing for the next 6-8 weeks, and sadly I had to say goodbye to that starting position because it was gone before I knew it.

     At first, I thought I could walk it off..yeah that lasted about 3 steps before I was on the ground. After it happened, I knew something was definitely wrong on the side of my right foot, and it was not the classic “you can walk it off, it’s just a tweak”. If by tweak you guys mean it’s a straight solid break you’re so right because that’s exactly what it was, a clean break; and knowing me of course; I end up breaking it in the perfect place, right where breaks usually don’t heal. One day after that away game I was sitting in an operating room getting a two-inch pin in the right side of my foot.

     After breaking my foot, I just wanted someone or something to blame for what happened to me so I blamed the first thing I could think of; the person who was out front of my when I decided to throw myself at that ball. The next couple of weeks in gym class included a couple dirty looks and some silent treatment to those who I thought deserved it; and on some of the worst days I thought about taking one of my crutches and giving the one who killed my season something to complain about. The first couple of weeks following my injury was a filled with a lot of hate, not only for the one who I was convinced hurt me, but also for myself. Deep down I knew that I was to blame but it was finding that hole in my heart and trying to fill it with something other than basketball and hate, but also just coming to the conclusion that no one specifically was at fault; was part of my journey that I wasn’t ready to do just yet.

     After three games of sitting on the bench and watching the only sport I play and enjoy I started to realize that this just might be one of the hardest things I’ll have to do all my high school career. Just knowing if I hadn’t been so competitive I’d be out there playing too and I’d be able to finish my season without a pin in my foot was hard for me to come to sense with. The road to recovery has always been hard for me because sitting inside with my ‘toes above the nose’ and repeating R.I.C.E. over and over again is not how I want to spend my basketball season. The worst part was having that little voice in the back of my head constantly telling me that things would’ve been different if he wouldn’t have cut me off, and I wouldn’t have been such a try hard with everything.

     After breaking my foot during my sophomore season, the two major things I’ve taken away from this experience is, one; stop being a try hard; relax life is only as intense as you make it. Two; forgive and forget, you don’t have to blame the first person or thing in your way. Over the past two year since my injury my perspective on everything has changed little by little over time. I’ve learned that holding a grudge on people is not only going to make your circle of friends smaller, but your perspective on people worse; meet people and get to know them before judging someone by a first impression from others or yourself. I’ve started to see life as more of an experience of second chances than how I used to see it; a roller coaster that only goes down, I feel like I’ve changed for the better. Sometimes you have to just ride the ride that the world has chosen for you and try to weaken the blows with a positive outlook.