Sports are a huge part of many teenagers’ lives. I know they are a big part of mine. Some people excel at sports, and others struggle. Sometimes it is worse to be right in the middle—being good at the sport you do, but not good enough to make the top teams. Then you see all of your friends and past teammates doing better than you, and that is when that question starts swarming around in your head. Am I good enough?
I started volleyball around the age of twelve years old. Before I played volleyball, I used to ride horses. I don’t like to talk about it because it was such a constant in my life up until the end of eighth grade, when I decided to quit. I still regret it to this day. Once you quit going that far on—it was seven or eight years for me—you can not just go back. Sometimes I wish I could, but then I realize that when I quit horse riding, I left that little girl behind. My reason to everybody was that I wanted to focus on volleyball, and I did, but that is not the only reason I quit riding. I felt like everyone around me who had just started was getting further than me in my eight years of experience. I felt behind for my age, and I felt judged. These thoughts consumed my brain while riding, and one day, after a difficult lesson, it struck me that it was time to quit. The day I left horse riding was a day I lost a huge part of myself that I can never get back. And it was all because of my mindset.
Ever since I stopped riding, I have tried to have a different mindset with volleyball. For a few years, it worked. I was improving, I was right there with everybody else. Then freshman year came around, and all of my school teammates were making MVA Rise teams, and I got cut. It was the first time I had been cut from a team, and that is when that question circulated my mind again—the same question I had in my head while riding. Then my sophomore year comes around, and I make the JV team. I knew I was not good enough to make Varsity, but I so badly wanted to be those girls who did. I spent weeks trying to become a vital player on my JV team, but the freshman on that JV team got much more playing time than me. I loved those girls, but I also envied them. How come they are so much better than I am? What can I do to be as good as them? Why am I not as good as they are? For the rest of the season, these questions ate me alive. I was constantly out of focus, not thinking about my playing, but instead about the others.
Now, it is club season. Winter tryouts have come around, and I got cut once again. I tried out for a different club and made it, because no matter what, I wanted to play volleyball. I ended up loving my team for the winter season. Then spring came around. My team, which went almost undefeated at the end of the season, was now going to be separated. I soon found out after the tryout results that it was not my team getting separated, but it was me. Most of my team had made the same team again, and they got moved up to a 17’s team, while I stayed down. Now I have, again, freshmen on my team. Even though I hate to say it, my team is so much worse this season. We rarely ever win games, and if we do, they are against easier teams. I then think of why my amazing winter season teammates all got to stay together, and I had to be the one separated. Is that just the way it is for me? Will I always be a lower level than everyone around me? I feel like I was just as good as anyone else on that team, but the coaches clearly thought differently. I always wondered if it was just a coincidence I always got on lower levels than everybody else or if I really just wasn’t good enough.
So again, that question is in my head. I am back in that mindset I had when I was riding. I am no longer having fun. It feels like a chore to go to practice when it should feel like a privilege. Is it my mindset that I need to change? Or do I just need to physically get better at volleyball? That haunting question, which never truly leaves my head, comes around again.
Am I good enough?
