I swatted the gnats away from my face on the humid spring afternoon. Soccer practice had just ended, now my mom and I sit in the lush green grass that pokes our legs. The cars pull out of the parking lot. My coach later comes to join us and we start a small meeting filled with conversations supporting why I should continue to play for my club soccer team. I awkwardly grabbed for my large water bottle to quench my post-practice thirst. My coach spoke of reasons to keep playing for my current team that I couldn’t even hear over my loquacious inner dialogue.

I thought back to earlier that week, thoughts of pros and cons swarmed in my head. I had been playing on my club soccer team for two years. It was a large commitment, but it was all worth it to me because I have loved soccer since I played my first game. It is the perfect puzzle piece to fit my life. Nothing else on Earth is quite comparable with the feeling I get when I am on the field. However, when I came into 7th grade, I was not prepared for what an important year it would be for me. I started hearing news of an outstanding girl's Junior High soccer team, with a good coach and good competition. Bit by bit this new team enticed my interest, but I wanted to stay loyal to my current team as well as wanting to make the team in high school. A compilation of my friends playing for Mariemont, the convenience of having practice right after school, and having a great coach on the team all gave excellent reasons that battled with my other thoughts in an arena of endless bickering between two sides. This inner thought tension was a source of stress for me. It became hard for me to sleep or even focus at school because it felt as if I made a poor decision on what team to play for, then the end of the world would come. Because if I didn’t make the right choice and have the perfect season, it was my love for soccer that would suffer. At the same time, being in 7th grade, you are tempted to be with your friends. Listening to conversations about games or practices without my participation just drew me farther into the idea of playing for Mariemont. I have always been so indecisive. Eventually, my appreciation for the sport was drowned out by the stressful situation I had succumbed to. I felt distracted and weary of the same arguing points patronizing me. It was an endless cycle of me not picking a side to my internal argument, and then we decided it would be a good idea to meet with my current coach. 

After practice one day, my coach, my mom, and I had a long conversation. At first, I was content.

“Until you get to high school, there is no competition when you play for your school,” my coach argued. He talked like these aren’t reasons that have endlessly been playing repeatedly in my brain for the past week. 

“I have watched girls leave this club and get cut from the high school team.” He said. Everything stopped. 

Hearing those words shocked me. I have always aspired to play for the Mariemont high school girl's soccer team. Soon after that statement was digested into my brain, it infuriated me that he thought that I would be throwing away all that I have worked for over the past four seasons if I simply played soccer elsewhere. Like my competitive spirit and love of the game would somehow instantly disappear. I was in a rage of anger and the deep desire to prove my coach wrong by taking extreme actions, like leaving the team. But it was in that moment where the emotions of the past week like stress, worriedness, and frustration all floated away. I realized those feelings all revolved around soccer. My favorite sport in the world had suddenly become the thing I was most anxious about. During this entire inner battle between my thoughts, I never came to reason with myself in the sense that soccer will be the same no matter what team I play for. I was honest with myself in thinking, if there are two goals, a large field, a ball, and an opposing team, I will be perfectly satisfied with whatever team I choose to play for. I knew I had reached a paramount in my soccer career. I was bewildered, I lost my grip on my favorite activity in the entire world and let it fall into the dirty hands of stress. The meeting went on for another ten minutes or so, filled with the same conversation topic but, I knew that at the end of all this, I will be the same person, playing the same sport I have loved since I was four years old. That statement provoked an inner resolution inside me. It was at that moment where suddenly, I knew what mattered. The lesson I had learned was clear; there will always be big decisions in my life, and they will be even more important to me if they center around something I am passionate about just like soccer. However, I cannot let big decisions like this affect my passion. I cannot let the stress of these decisions become a sector from what is important, that I continue to make choices that better myself. 

As my mom and my coach continue their chatter, I look out to the distant fields. Lines of white paint color the blades of grass that dance in the wind. The hills roll quietly, complimenting the wheat fields in the background. The referee’s muffled whistle blows. I then imagine myself like a tiny player in the field far away. I move back and forth chasing the ball as it soars through the bright blue sky. Then my pretend image focuses, my face now clear. I can now see there is a wide smile painted from cheek to cheek because now I understand that decisions do not define me or my love of the game.

       I stay respectful until the end of the meeting. After it concludes, I climb into the car and watch the fields until they are out of view. I turned to my mom.

“I thought that meeting was very helpful,” she said.

“I guess, but I think I already know what team to play for,” I responded.

“Which one?”

“The junior high,” I proudly announced. My mom, like always, supported me right away with my decision. I felt that the weight of the world was now lifted off of my shoulders. 

I lied in bed that night and went back to the pretend portrait I had pictured with myself on that distant field during the meeting. Now, my smiling face was wearing a brilliant blue jersey with the bold white letters that print “Mariemont” on the front. I was finally satisfied with the decision I made.