If you think about it, your whole life revolves around time. What time you wake. What time you go to School. What time you have dinner. What time you go to bed. And the time you spend with your loved ones. evaluator
But what matters even more is the timing of events. You could decide to walk downtown to get a cup of coffee instead of driving. As a result you could have missed running into someone who on ends up being your new best friend. One the other hand if you drove to the coffee shop instead of walking you could have been too early to meet your soulmate.

Think about that, how your whole life can be affected by the timing of events.

Early June, 2011

I have had a lot of first’s in my eight years of being alive, first steps, first words, first time making friends, first day of school, and so on. But this is the first time I am standing in front of three evaluators trying to prove my skills to them so they are as good as I know them to be. It is my first travel team. It is my first time trying out for a competitive level. If I do make the team I will be playing kids from different towns. the best kids, from different towns. That is if I make it, but I was pretty good. I mean how can I not make the team? I was always the best person on any team I had played on in the past.

On the way to the tryout my Dad asks me if I was nervous, I simply respond with a ´´no.´´ I mean what do I have to be worried about. I am amazing.

During the tryout I know that the competition would be the same so I do not want to seem THAT good so I do not try that much, but I mean I was still great.

During the tryout we were given pinnies with numbers so the evaluators can talk about us but not use names, but also when the results were posted, which were public, people would really only see where they were being placed. My number was number 4.

Late June, 2011

On the website that has the results I see the number 4 right under the list made for B team. This was the list of girls who were good enough to play at a competitive level, but not good enough to be placed in the category of the best in my town.

From behind it feels as if I am tackled and painful pushed to the ground, I have been blindsided in the worst way possible. Never could have I seen this coming which makes the impact so much more painful.
How could I have not made the team? Maybe I should have tried a bit more but I still thought I had done really well. I guess the tryout evaluators had not thought so. I guess I will just have to try harder for next time. At least I am playing on a team.

June, 2012

I could not contain my excitement, I was constantly smiling and jumping around, because in days that I can count on my fingers and toes, I was given a shot at redemption. Once again I can show three soccer evaluators my skills hoping to please them enough to make it on the A team.

I have been working hard since last year's tryout, which for myself had a heartbreaking outcome, the past is in the past and I can’t  wait to show the tryout evaluators that they had made a mistake last year.

It was about a week before of the tryout and things could not be better, for me. Things for my great Grandmother, Grandmother, and my Mother were not too bright. Recently my Great Grandfather had died, so each of them had just lost either a loving husband, Father, or Grandfather. I was not very close to my Great Grandfather, he was nice but, we never visited that often to really have a relationship. I was only going out to Ohio for the funeral really because of my Mother and Grandma who I do have a close relationship with. And both of them had just lost someone the love.

I had just finished packing my bags when I had finally put two and two together.
“Mom.” I continue to shout until she comes in my room.
“What is it.” My Mom says as she and my Dad enter my room startled.
“What is that date of my tryout.” I ask.
“ The 24th.” my Dad says.

“But that’s this week. And were going to be away. Were going to be in Ohio then.” I say, sure that I have missed something and they will correct me, because after last year there was no way I was missing it.
“Yes sweetie that right, we won’t be in New Jersey on the day of your trout.” My mother says.

Tears fill my eyes.

Right then it is as if I am punched in the stomach, and all the wind has been knocked out of me. In soccer this this is not uncommon. Imagine you're running up the field with full force so that nothing can get in your way. The defender who has the ball. You will stop at nothing to make sure the soccer ball not is cleared from the opposing team's side of the field. But with bad timing causes the defender to kick the ball trying to clear it, hoping to send her midfielders and strikers towards your goal. But you get in the way the ball knocked down and pushed to the side by the force of your body. But so are you, the ball has hit you in the stomach. You fall to the ground trying to grasp for air, as it now feels like all the air in the room has been suck out. Despite being outside. The coach takes you off the field, so you can sit down for a couple of minutes, until you are ready to get back in the game.
Although this time it will take me more than a few minutes before I start to feel alright again. I sit down on my the edge of my bed trying to take it all in. How could this happen?

“So I am gonna miss the  try out?” I ask desperately.
“Yes, but don’t worry you will still probably make the team you are already on.” My dad says trying to comfort me as he and my mom take a seat next to me.
Like the crazy striker who has been knocked done by taking a hard blow from a soccer ball this was just bad timing.

I know what he is saying is not true it’s just to make me feel better, which I was in no mood to hear. ‘Just say it already’  I want to scream! I won’t be able to play soccer next year, and when that finally sinks in I can’t hold back anymore tears, and they all just spill down my face. I hate it when I cry no matter who it was in front of. Tough girls never cried, they also were smart enough to figure out a way to on the team they wanted to.

My mother is going on about something I am not paying attention to. When I finally realize one of the things that are making me so upset is not sadness but anger. From then on I can only think about how truly unfair this is to me. A relative of mine that I barely knew died and making me leave the state for a week, missing one of the most important days of the year to me. This was not right, I had accepted last year's results, that was my own fault I mad underestimated the competitive level that the evaluators were looking for, as well as the skills of the other girls. I may have even overestimated myself, but I accepted the results and told myself that the next year I would show them how good I was. Now I can’t even do that.

My first time missing a tryout, my first time knowing that before I could even show my skills I would not have made it.

By the time my Mom had finished her long boring thought, my Dad just says “Hey you know that if a player gets injured or can’t go to the tryout for some reason that player will still probably make the team they were on. You are registered, for the tryout, and Coach Jim would not pass up the opportunity to have you on his team again.”
That makes me smile. But that means I would be on the Fire also known B team again, not the A team, not with all of the best players. How could that satisfy me? Knowing that I have to sit back and not even be able to show my skills, which I have been working so hard to improve?

“Yeah I guess.?” Is all I get out. I had finally started to calm down from all the crying. My parents say a bit more to me then leave my room. I did not want them to leave, not for comfort right now I just wanted to scream and cry but be alone. No the reason I wanted them to stay was because when they did leave it felt like that was it. It was a done deal. There was no way that I could attend the tryout. My heart sunk. Bad timing HUn?

June, 2013

It is the end of my second season on a travel team, which means it is getting very close to the tryout for next season.

This was my first time going to a tryout knowing that I could easily not make it, but it is not my first time knowing I had a lot to prove.

The main thing I was worried about was bad timing, what if we show up late, and I can’t tryout? What if there is a huge storm that comes in and the tryouts are cancelled all together, and the people who are picked are just going to the team they were on last year? 1 million of the questions swirl around in my head. The last thing I need is bad timing.

I had been so nervous, but I had remember my Dad telling me beforehand

“Don’t treat this as a time to hang out with your friends, don’t be messing around and talking with them. You're in this to win this. To get you name on their list. I know they are your friends and you want to be nice but your all fighting for the same spot.”

And he was right, showing how funny you thought your friends were only showed the evaluators that you're not focused.

What they wanted to see was a hard worker, who was first to every ball, shouting out names for the ball, and someone who was trying their best. And that is what I planned on being.

Throughout the tryout I had tried my best to try to call out a name when scriminging, be extra aggressive, and always made sure I knew when an evaluator was watching me. I had tried to stay on my toes the whole time and to go above and beyond, I could not settle for being on the same team again, I wouldn't.

By the end of the tryout I had absolutely no idea how I did. I had felt good about how I played, there was definitely girls who were much  better then me and girls who I was better then. Overall I thought I had done well. But at the end of the day it does not matter how I thought I did. It only matters how the three evaluators thought I did at each of their stations they had set up, to see how I would do doing different drills.

July, 2013

I am sitting in my Kitchen watching T.V. when the phone rings. I turn no one is around to answer it so I do. I get up turn the T.V. off and walk over to the phone.

“Hello?” I say into the phone.
“Hello, this is the head coach for the Lightning are  either of your parents around?” The man asks. The Lightning was the team name of the A team, so right now I was speaking with the man who’s team I desperately wanted to be on. My Mom was working up stairs, and who knows where my Dad was. So I respond with a “no.”
“Okay well is Sarah available?”
“That’s me.” I could not help what this man wanted, I have never heard of a head coach calling someone’s house number before.
“Well I was just calling to see if you had seen the results for the tryouts for next season”
“Oh...um no I had not seen them. I did not know they were up yet.”
“Yes well the results are up and I just wanted to call you to make sure that you had gotten the news that you had made the A team. So next season I look forward to coaching you on the Lightning.” Time stops everything around me disappears my house, the phone call, everything. I am now just a girl realizing for the first time it was all worth it. It had all paid off.

I was speechless. I had finally done it it does not seem real. Nothing beyond that point mattered what he said, I had done it. This was my first time making the A team.

Have you ever squeezed a bag of chips until they popped? Have you noticed how that when you are pressing down on the bag the pressure increases and the particles in the air trapped inside the bag are probably just going crazy.

That is how I felt right now everything inside of me was going crazy and I could not just stand for much longer because I was about to burst.

It probably was not a good Idea for me to be ignoring my future coach but I could not help it I was so happy. He was in the middle of talking about what? I couldn't tell, I just needed a second.

“So tryouts-”
“I am sorry but could you just give me one second?”
“Sure”
I put my finger over the receiver on the phone and I just scream in sheer joy. I start to jump up and down. The smile on my face, could not be ripped off. After a minute or two of being happy in my own world I decide I should probably let my future coach finish what he had to say after I had cut him off.

He continues to talk about the results of the tryout and saying how he was happy for me.

“Yes well that’s about it, I will email your parents but I just wanted to call to tell you that you had made the team and congratulations.” He says.

“Thank you so much!” I said
“Your welcome.”
After the call had ended I had sprinted up the stairs to tell my mom the good news.