Many, many moons ago I was a young, very stupid,
self-centered, stubborn teenager who was very set in her ways. I was so stuck
in this little bubble with no desire to get out, or to be anything more than
ordinary that until God, fate, karma, destiny, whatever you want to call it
stepped in and changed everything.
I’d have to say when you are sixteen years old you don’t
really think past the Friday night football game, the homecoming dances, prom
dates or boyfriends, and in all honesty you think that everything is going to
last forever. I was one of those sixteen year old girls, just trying to fit in,
trying to find myself in the ways of others.
This idea of “fitting in” landed
me at a party with many of my other friends drinking; playing beer pong, doing
what I thought was cool at the time…. Long story short, 90% of the party was
made up of student athletes, most on their starting lineup of whatever sport
they played. Word traveled fast around the school and I found myself sitting in
the office, being questioned like so many of my other friends about what had
happened that night. To put this story even shorter, I was in deep water,
suspended from sports for I think it was 6 games, as a sophomore in high school
(not to mention I was a starter on varsity). Not only did the school come down
hard but so did my parents, instantly I was grounded for life, car was taken,
cell phone was taken, my life as a sixteen year old was over. So, me being
again a very stupid teenager started to gain back their trust and eventually
got my rights back. But no sooner were they taken right back, when I lied to my
parents to sneak out to another party. Dad was not happy about this one.. I
recall him cutting my license up and cutting right around my picture and said “here
you can put this in your scrapbook.” Yeah, that was a rough year.
Obviously I earned the trust back, built a stronger
foundation with my parents, and stopped being a lying little sixteen year old.
These sequence of events led to me being so determined to move out, have a life
of my own, and promise myself that I wouldn't make decision based on what other
people were doing, what others wanted me to do, or try to “fit in” with a
crowd. It took a lot for me to realize that I have a whole lifetime ahead of me
to party, drink, go out with boys, and be a rebel.
This is where my real adventure started, I found out more
about myself after these events than I even knew was possible. Having soccer
taken from me for that short of time made me realize how valuable something can
be, how when you are stripped away from something you love, you will work that
much harder to get it back. I did just that, I got a call from a local coach
saying he wanted me to try out for his college team and after trying out I
landed me a full ride scholarship. I was in shock and almost had given up
playing college soccer, and granted this was a junior college, it brought me
away from making the wrong choices such as moving in with my then boyfriend,
settling for a school closer to home, and staying in that comfort zone. High
school was just a pinch of time in my life, but these few events, these
mistakes, this spontaneous decision to play college soccer; this was where my adventure started…
No comments:
Post a Comment