A Single Tear

A single tear trickled down my flushed cheek. I dashed for the locker room, my right foot hitting the concrete as the left remained on the edge of the court. The sob I had held in released, overcoming my entire body and I sank to the floor succumbing to my own emotions. Within the concrete walls of the locker room I sat, pressed up against the cool wall, as the sobs continued to flow out of me. It was a minor mistake, one that’s not worth crying over, yet I broke down.

I misunderstood the play- running the opposite direction straight into another player and missing the pass. Anyone else would have laughed, it was an ordinary, everyday appearance in practice to mess up a play, it should not have resulted in tears. Yet I broke down.

By my third season of playing, one would think that I would be able to laugh at these minor mistakes and shake it off, ignoring it just as my teammates do. Typically, I was able to, brushing it off for the duration of practice and pushing past any emotions I had. Over the three years I had played my attitude improved significantly, yet I was still so hard on myself. In those moments when I was too hard on myself, I was unable to overlook the emotions lying beneath the surface. In that particular moment I succumbed to those emotions and I was unable to overlook my minor mistake, unable to laugh at my situation, unable to move on. As I let my emotions overcome me, I set myself back in that moment. I was no longer learning and improving my game, instead dwelling on the missed pass.

Situations such as that were popular occurrences in my first two seasons of playing. As I was new to the sport I often became too overwhelmed, especially when I compared myself to the other, more experienced girls. However, that year, my junior year had been different. I had worked hard enough in the off season to become a decent player and no longer felt the large gap between my ability and the ability of my peers, until that one practice.

Looking back now I do not remember why I was in such a negative mood that day, maybe an underlying situation that was unrelated to practice, but in hindsight it came down to my inability to laugh. After a slew of mistakes that resulted in the missed pass, I had gotten into my head enough; surpassing the laughing-at-mistakes stage and resulting in tears.

In the immediate future from that moment, my inability to laugh was a setback. I was embarrassed and didn’t want to finish practice, and once I finally worked up the courage to walk out from the locker room I was unable to truly practice with the team, as I was in the wrong mindset. In those following moments my inability to laugh made coping with my mistake nearly impossible.

While that situation proved to be a hindrance to my progress in practice that day, I was able to learn from the situation and progress for the future of my basketball career. After confrontation from my coach, I realized that I would not be able to live up to my full potential if I continued to be hard on myself. From that meeting on I made a conscious effort to laugh at my mistakes rather than allow those mistakes to defeat me.

As I write this I have those same tears streaming down my face, but not because I made a mistake. Not because I am unable to laugh at a minor situation. But rather because I regret my inability to laugh. Now that my season has ended I realize the impact basketball has had on my life. I am no longer able to play or make those stupid mistakes, now I am only able to dwell on what could have been. Had I been able to laugh off all those minuscule moments my experience would have been so much greater. They say laughter is the best medicine, had I listened maybe I wouldn’t look back on my experience with regret. Maybe I wouldn’t have wasted countless hours crying over things that no longer matter.

Image from foter.com