In Junior High my dad decided I should begin playing premier soccer.  He'd route out the different league's tryouts and drag a somewhat begrudging daughter along to field after field each rainy weekend.  I wanted to play soccer.  And I wanted to play premier.  I just hated tryouts.  So much.  I don't think he really even knew it - I was just quiet.  I knew it was the necessary evil.

Most of the girls went to the same schools and naturally had friends on the field to stretch, pass and warm up with.  When game time came, they knew each other's names and wanted one another to make the team.  Not me.  I usually knew no one.  Maybe one girl.  It's really hard to make a good show for the coaches too when no one knows you or cares to help set you up with a good pass in the game here and there.  It's infuriating.  You just  have to hope for a good coach who sees how you are playing off the ball, because you are going to have a lot of time off that ball in the tryouts as a lone soldier.  And then, you can hope to do well in the drills: perfect touches, perfect shots.  But I usually didn't.  Definitely didn't do perfect.  See what makes me a great player is how I create. I don't take shots from the top of the 18 that leave a goalie in tears.  I see plays, I read players and I feed balls, well.  And that is hard to show until you have a team. 

After a weekend of tryouts, you would go home and take a hot bath to ease your aching muscles.  You'd ice and down the ibuprofen.  You'd rehydrate.  And mostly, you'd stare at your phone.  And with every hour that passed, you knew your odds diminished.  They were going to call the girls who made the team first, and make sure they accepted the position.... then they'd work down the list of players, who they may want to fill in a spot if it opens up, who just didn't make the team. 

I'll be honest, I didn't make a lot of teams.  I made enough.  And eventually, I made it on to my favorite team, with my favorite coach.  Everything was different there.  The assistant coach's daughter decided I was good, and she wanted to me to be her friend and teammate.  She made sure to feed me opportunities in the scrimmages.  I got a chance to show my strengths - and for once, I enjoyed a tryout.  It was also the first year ever I tried out for just one team.  I told my dad I was trying out for this one club and that was it - I was convinced that it was the team I wanted to play for, and was supposed to play for and that if I was to play soccer that year at all, I would.  I've never regretted that decision though I've often been baffled at how sure I was.

Tryouts taught me a lot.  Soccer in general did.  It's undoubtedly a large part of who I am.  I still don't love walking into a room of people I don't know.  But at least they aren't carrying around clip boards and narrowing down the room to 18.  I can choose to be comfortable and confident - I can make friends with strangers.  And I can handle stressful situations.  I can analyze people and situations.  I can coordinate situations like plays.  But, I still remember that terrible feeling that follows a tryout - staring at the phone on and off, trying to think of something else, trying to not feel that giant knot in my stomach.

I feel that way right now.  I feel like I've just gone through tryouts and I'm waiting by the phone, praying I made the team.  I feel like I'm 17 again.