Team Sports

I have never been one for team sports... I actually kind of hated them. For a long time.

Back when I was six or seven, I decided I wanted to play baseball so my mom dumped me into Little League with my brother; she figured she was already there for my brother so it worked. I only played for one year. Despite being upset about not playing anymore at the time (Mom pulled us both because of problems with my brother), I realized years down the road that I had hated it.

I was one of two girls on my team and we were both pretty good.. for six year olds anyway. I could hit the ball pretty hard, I could run pretty fast, and the coach put me in the outfield because I could throw the ball from the edge of the outfield and at least get it damn close to the infield. The boys hated all this. Every little thing I did wrong was brought up over and over. Excuses were made for the things that I was better at than them. And I was too shy at the time to stand up for myself. Even though I was used to this kind of thing from my family (you may remember a past post that started with being told I couldn't do the same things the boys did), I thought being on a team meant we would be working together.

I wasn't on a team. I was a girl in a boy's world, in a time that was just beginning to recognize that girls could do these things too.... but not with the boys. Bobby Sox had just started taking off in my area and I was told that's where my place was. I didn't want to play softball and was made even more of an outcast because of it. I didn't belong with the boys or the girls. I officially hated team sports.

That hatred was reenforced in PE at school in later years. Teenage and pre-teen boys don't take it well when a girl hits harder, kicks farther, runs faster.. whatever. The excuses started up again. One day in 7th grade, we were playing baseball and the teacher decided the girls had to hit a softball. After an argument, she conceded that we could choose; I chose the baseball. And hit the damn thing into the next field. One of the boys (on my own team!) immediately spent the whole time I ran the bases ranting about how the softball bounces off the bat and makes it go farther and he could hit a softball that far too. As I passed home base and headed back into the line, I simply told him I hit the baseball; I was then challenged with "I bet you can't do that again". I did. For some, I was outcasted yet again, but luckily others were a bit more open-minded and called the boy out on how far he hit the ball.

At the beginning of 8th grade, my knee became a problem and I had a free pass to sit out or "take it easy" if I deemed it necessary. At this point, I longed to play again even though it wasn't socially acceptable in my circle of friends.. I had been the only one to grow up so active and my free pass was a coveted thing. The gender segregation happened more than I was comfortable with, but it at least meant I wouldn't be fighting with the boys. One quarter in 9th grade, a friend and I (but mostly her) gathered enough girls to play flag football because the teacher wouldn't let us play with the boys. He was shocked that his challenge backfired on him, but admitted by the end that we did pretty good. That same year, I was pursued by the softball coach (with the help of my dad) to try out for the softball team. We had a small group of girls that seemed to be on every girl's team (and treated everyone like the boys had treated me over the years) and each sport had their stars; I only liked one girl on the softball team, so I simply let it pass by, but I did enjoy "practicing" with my dad.

After high school, I didn't do much between work and school, but the store I worked at did have baseball games with our rival store once or twice a year. It was co-ed and happy to be, and despite the rivalry everyone worked together to just have a good time, except when the other store demanded a "sober rematch" after one of these events... it was encouraged to take a drink before heading out on the field and it seems we just did that better. And I looked forward to these games.

Then my second knee surgery came along and at age 22, I was promised a knee replacement in my future. I was convinced I needed to get active again, make my body healthy again, be stronger in general, that if I didn't get active I would be heading for more surgery and it would get harder and harder to recover. I gravitated towards solo sports; biking at first, then fate stepped in and introduced me to marathons. Despite being slow and sometimes in massive amounts of pain, I loved it. I was active and even though I trained with others, my own skills only affected me. I could cheer for others, run with with friends, but at the end of the day I was on my own. My finishing was up to me. And I stayed with those solo sports for the next 8 years. When I had to stop running, I immediately looked into ways to continue those same sports; got a racing wheelchair, got on the bike more, found a place to kayak, figured out how to keep hiking...

I never looked into team sports for wheelchairs. But they found me...

The guy at the community center that let me borrow my first racer tried to get me to come play basketball, but I resisted. I started talking to others and hearing about more sports, seeing the videos. That longing came back; despite all my physical and mental setbacks, I do think I was made for sports. As my world went crazy last year, I knew it was a time to start over again; when I started running, it had been a leap into something new, something on my own, something to continue pushing myself out of my comfort zone, something to force me to meet new people without a buffer. It worked then and I was going to do it again. I stumbled into the right groups on Facebook and starting signing up for sports clinics. First was wheelchair lacrosse, then sitting volleyball, and most currently wheelchair basketball.

The experiences with these sports has been mostly the same; everyone working together to reach goals, encouragement in successes, and advice to fix mistakes and/or to get better. That first day with lacrosse was my first time playing a team sport in many years and the first in a wheelchair; I spent the day learning and getting help from the coaches and more experienced players, I cheered with everyone else when anyone caught the ball, had a good pass, or made a goal, even when we were on opposing teams. At the end of the day, I was called a natural and some didn't believe that I had never played the sport in any capacity.

The sitting volleyball clinic came a couple months later and I have been playing ever since. Practices are spent learning, improving on skills, and trying to make my brain work faster to put it all together in play. When I make a mistake during drills, I get advice and repetition; when I make a mistake during a game, I'm given my dramatic moment, then I'm encouraged back into the game. Despite the competition, we're all still working together. During a recent tournament, it was the same... it was a fun day and I learned quite a bit. The competition was definitely there, but it was a relief to see how much fun everyone was having.. one team even danced between almost every play. The only pressures put on me are my own, but I have learned to not make it a negative pressure, just a simple push forward to be better for the sake of being better.

A few weeks ago, wheelchair basketball was finally placed in front of me again. I had been dancing around it for some time, but never actually going to play. I went to BORP's Opening Day and was able to jump in when they introduced basketball. By the end of the day, a couple friends asked me if I was going to join their practices and I was hooked. I have been there twice and both times have been basically like the volleyball; teaching me about the game as we go, improving skills and advice on how to do things better, including me in strategies, and cheering me on when I do things well. I can't shoot well (but I'm working on it!) and I'm still working on moving with the ball, but I seem to be good at rebounds, jumping into the fray to be at the right place at the right time, and rushing down the court to get in the other team's way. The guys don't care that I missed a shot, just that I tried. My first day, they even slowed the game down a bit when I had a chance to shoot so that I could get a feel for it.

I find myself looking forward to the nights I get to play these sports, to seeing the people I play with that are quickly becoming friends, to the camaraderie of being on a team.... and something my very competitive family would never have taught me, celebrating everyone on the court because they're doing something special.

And they're turning this jaded solo athlete into a team player.

Missing

Last night I dreamed that I was running through a forrest barefoot... practically frolicking. Over the trails, through streams, up rocks, it was beautiful. And I woke up in a rather calm state, but then I had to stand up and my reality came crashing back. Don't get me wrong, I have accepted and am comfortable in my current life, but that doesn't stop me from wishing things like being able to just walk out the front door without the varying extra stuff I need now. It's usually a fleeting wish of the simpler life I used to live not long ago and took advantage of every day until it was gone.

But the one thing I would take back without question is my random ramblings through the trails (barefoot or not).. my Family Circus wanderings until I got tired and pulled out my map to figure out where I ended up and how to get back to my car. Those adventures are what I miss the most.

And none of the new adventures I've discovered come close to that, but I'll keep looking!

On another note, a different missing piece has been pressing on me lately. It was about this time last year that I was losing or had lost some friends. I had spent almost a year in a hellish daze, trying to pull myself back to the surface and some friends I had counted on had enough. Some walked out quietly, some pointed out all the negative my life had become.. those ones took a long time to get past. It's hard to overcome it when you're already trying to heal and those close to you are trying to convince you that you've become (or had been, in a couple cases) a selfish and horrible person. Some days, I still have to take a moment to remember the fun we had or the nice things I did in order to get past the person I last saw.

I find myself missing the friends I had before they focused on my negative moments and/or qualities (however numerous they were at that point), and only wish they would talk to me. My deepest wish is they would share one last moment with me, a lunch maybe. Only one more moment because while I miss them, I have accepted that we were removed from each other's lives for a reason. That we served our roles for each other and we're now on separate paths that may or may not meet up again.

But I would still like that moment of closure that I never got with most of them.

Also just a moment because I just don't trust them with my still fragile heart. My heart that is so much stronger than it was a year ago and still healing a bit more each day, but will never be rid of that large crack down the middle or the small fissures from putting it back together so many times. I'll never be the person I was a few years ago, but today, in this moment, is the closest I've felt in a long time. And tomorrow will be closer still.

I just want those who used to consider me a friend to see it, to be proud of what I've done for myself. To have that moment together to see what we used to be.

And let it just be.