The Soccer Field

The minute I step on, I can not remember a single worry that could have been ailing me only seconds ago. School, work, friends, and stress all seem to vanish from my mind after my cleats first initial graze of the lush green beneath them. The enormity of it all should make me feel insignificant but instead empowers me. Here, I can remember every victory as if it was all replaying right in front of my eyes for the second time. Here, is where I come to relax. Here, I can do what I do best; and that is play soccer.

The goal is the first thing that captures my attention when I walk on. The very goal that will either make or break the game, favor us or our rivals, and end up being our best friend or our own worst enemy. The goal is worn from age and the countless shots that have been taken on it over the years. The paint on it peels, and both grass and mud have permanently made their more than friendly acquaintance with it. Although I have played every position there is, right in front of the goal is where I belong, as a defender. Protecting that eight by twenty-four rectangle is what my team counts on me to do. The eighteen foot rectangle just in front of our goal defines my boundaries with its crisp white painted lines. I can hear every voice that has ever once rung in my ears from the stands, especially my mom's voice; which I can always pick out of a crowd. The voices cheer me on, attempt to coach me, and even sometimes get frustrated with me. The scoreboard, the one and only judge of the game, stands tall at the end of the field shadowing over me and my team mates.

The bleachers surround the field like curious overlooking mountains. Those mountains we were forced to climb every week for the infamous “Conditioning Tuesdays”. The cold silver ledges seemed to be never ending and unforgivable; and now as they stare down upon me, I am reminded of how much my hard work, with their uninvited help, has paid off. The massive maroon ring that encompasses the field from corner to corner never fails to make me shudder thinking about my many trials with its cruel merry go round trickery. When running this noose shaped death trap, you must circle it a minimum of four times before you can say you have accomplished anything of some worth and significance; this being one full mile. The loathsome benches sit on the side of the field, and mock me for every mistake I make.; for I know that any error I make has the power to put me into it's cold unforgiving clutches, where I may have to spend the remainder of the game. The cold, cruel metal is the one place on the field I truly detest. And although I respect and admire the field in nearly all its entirety, there is nothing I despise more than the prison that the bench represents. The prisoners get placed in its confinements after making a blunder of some sort and are then forced to remain behind its bars dependent on how fatal their mistake was. The prisoners are then involuntarily compelled to watch those, who were previously their equals, out on the vast green ocean of freedom playing. While they can do nothing but watch and attempt to be supportive, they are anxiously waiting to get out and join the others on the limitless and far-reaching green ocean the grass field symbolizes.

The field is the one place I feel the most at home, and content with myself. Its massiveness energizes and ignites my spirit, and provokes a lightheartedness within me that only it can bring out. To a mere passerby, it may not look like more than a patch of grass and a couple of beaten up and withering goal posts, but to me it is so much more. It is a sanctuary for me, a therapist for my troubles, a shoulder to cry on for my bad days, and a best friend when I have no one to turn to.