Brandi's Blog
My First Game Back!!!
This blog is the hardest thing I have had to write because I don’t think that I am quite capable of using the exact and necessary words to express the amazingly deep feelings I have about wearing my cleats again. Soccer has always been a regular part of my life since I was a young girl, but since 2005, it has seemed a distant passion. It’s not to say that I haven’t been doing something that I love, but not being on the field was life altering. I missed it like crazy. But my hole of deep sadness has been filled. The reincarnation of professional soccer has happened. The WPS (women’s professional soccer) will kick off it’s season in less than a month and it will be amazing. The season actually began with the first day of training on March 1st. The energy in the locker room at 8am was great. There were new faces, and old(but none older than mine, hahahahaha). We were getting ready to go out to the field for the first time, at it was EXCITING. It was as if I hadn’t been in a locker room before. I was bouncing around with my video camera, acting like it was the first time. It wasn’t but it was the first day of my resurrection. I haven’t been myself and it’s because the thing I love most, outside of my family, had been absent. There were doubts about my intentions, my ability, my need to be apart of the league. I felt that I had to defend my desire, prove my worth and overwhelm the naysayers. However, something quite incredible happened the morning of the 1st after I pulled up my socks and headed out the door to the field, the weight of expectations melted away. I became lighter, freer. I realized that I didn’t have to be anything other than the person who was thrilled to be just one of the players on the field. The soccer would take care of itself. That first morning, 2nd training and every other training since until today have been awesome. I haven’t played awesomely every time, and probably not anywhere close to that since I have ached from my toe nails to my neck for the better part of 9 days, but what I have been experiencing is a slow and steady lifting of the exhaustion, fatigue and soreness from my body that nearly immobilized me. If that wasn’t enough to contend with, the questions of “why” I was out there putting myself through it crept into my brain. I couldn’t answer that question with anything other than the same answer I gave every moment I got out of bed with my knee surgeries and got ready for therapy, I love being on a team.
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