Having only one soccer club in Bend to play competitively on and having a relatively small population put me playing with almost the exact same group of girls in the club as I grew up. This also left me knowing everyone who plays soccer and consequently when I got to high school soccer, I was still with the same girls. We had been playing with each other for 7 plus years and had become an incredibly close unit on and off the field. Some of my closest friends came from playing soccer. Soccer had helped me break out of my shell socially and provided an outlet for stress relief. My life revolved around soccer.
However, in the spring of freshman year I was burning out. I had finished the fall season of high school, winter league was over and I was trying to balance spring club soccer with high school track. Without a break and feeling overwhelmed, I grew disinterested in soccer as it became a stressful environment for me as the older girls had to join our team and I was no longer seeing the field a lot. Everything was too much at once for me at the time and soccer came last on my priority list as the season trudged on. I finished out the spring season, but high school tryouts were next. Last high school season I was head over heels for our coach, Mack,
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This was a critical and meaningful accomplishment for me at the time and still is. I always avoided conflict because I was afraid to step on anyone’s toes, and I especially feared change. Removing competitive soccer from my life was an immense change and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it. I’m proud of myself for accepting that I needed an adjustment in my life and being courageous enough to voice that desire. This was a turning point in my emotional self-awareness and being gentle with my stress load. I’m grateful to have had a support system of Mack and my mom during this