Missing

My brother was just out in the backyard shooting some hoops.  He asked me to join him, but I declined.  Politely, of course.  Being only about as tall as your average sixth grader, I am not much of a basketball person.    I am more of a soccer person.  Even though I'm not one of those who've played since they were first able to walk, I've played soccer for a goodly amount of years.  It would have been seven this year had I not been kicked off the school team.

I didn't sock anyone in the face, post anything stupid on Facebook, or mouth off to the coach (even though that was sorely tempting towards the end of it).  I was kicked off because I didn't "try out," having still had obligations to my cross-country team during official winter sport try-outs.  This had never been an issue before, and I was sure that I would at least have a shot at varsity this year.  The coach said that I'd have a place on the team.  She did.  And then the night after my first soccer practice of the season, I got a phone call from the new assistant coach saying that they had accidentally accepted too many people onto the team, and so my soccer career ended rather anticlimactically.  I could maybe understand that excuse for throwing me off the team, but not the fact that the coach said that I wasn't "good enough."  I have played for seven years.  I was on JV last year, and I can say with all humility that I could outplay at least three-quarters of that team.  But there I was, disgracefully relieved of duty.

I was angry, and some of the anger did come from the knowledge that I deserved to be at least on JV.  Most of the anger came from somewhere else, though.  I knew that I would never play organized ball again.  I'm just not good enough to play at the college level, and participation in a league outside of school was way out of the question.  So that was it.  No more soccer.  Period.  Was it the finality of it all that killed me?  No.

When I first started playing soccer, that very first year when I was in fourth grade, I was part of a summer co-ed rec league.  I met a boy on my team who was a year older than I.  We made it through that first season together, both beginners, both terrible at the sport.  The only picture I ever took with him was the team photo.  It's taped to the inside front cover of my old journal.

He died almost four years ago on April first.  What a fool I was.

Being on the soccer pitch after that sometimes made everything unbearable.  Sometimes I'd stare at the lonely, empty goal and wonder what on earth I was doing there, so lost, so confused.  Soccer became a way for me to work through that long process psychiatrists call "grief."  I played to remember him.  That was when we were closest, on the pitch, scuffing the matted grass with muddy cleats, being generally terrible at whatever we did.

I played all through junior high, took a year off for my freshman year, then came back and played JV sophomore year.  I got thrown around a lot, being short and all, and our coaches at the time hardly knew us, so throughout the season, I really played every single position out there except keeper, starting as a fullback, then a midfielder, then striker, then back to fullback, even though I was a born winger.  The sport became a chore.  Endless practices full of drills I had long mastered years previously.  On and on and on.  I enjoyed the touch of the ball on the top of my foot; I wore those old T90's I'd had for years even though they were split at the seams.  I enjoyed the games when there was a minimum of repetition, plenty of adrenaline, dirt up the shorts after crazy slide tackles.  I played my own game, but everyone else did too.  We were eleven separate units, each of us tugging each other in separate directions.

I went home frustrated almost everyday.  As one of the more experienced players, I felt that it was my responsibility to help guide the team, but in a white/Hispanic dominated sport, no one listens to a short, bespectacled Asian girl with a nasal voice.  I loved the sport.  I hated the team.

I guess I've come to the conclusion that getting kicked off the team was a good thing.  Junior year is a hassle, and my blood pressure doesn't need to be any higher than it already is.  But right now, when I hear my brother outside playing the sport he loves, I wish that I could suit up again, tape my socks so my shin guards won't slide, lace up my red-white-and-gold cleats, pump up the ball, and take shots from beyond the box.  But my backyard is small, my cleats are caked with dried mud, and my ball is beyond repair.  I wish so badly that I could just take one more shot.  I won't even care if I miss it.  In fact, it'd be better if I did.  Because then, I'd be reminded of what used to be.