Hope.

"You'll never know unless you try" is what they told me after I suffered a major injury in the two sports I loved the most. When the doctor told me I tore my ACL, MCL, and my meniscus, my world had began to spiral. I truly thought I was done for, never to play again. The mere idea of never being able to play again threw me into a deep depression. It was my third year wrestling and little did I know it would be my last. The doctors had very little faith I would ever be able to wrestle or play rugby again, two things I loved so deeply. Most people in high school spend their time studying or finding their first love, but my heart was always with the mats and the field. This was my only source of true happiness and it was being stripped away from me little by little, the two things that made me feel the most alive. I lived and breathed to win, no matter the match or how far I ran to get the try, there was always only one thing in sight, winning. I truly did not know where to turn, who to talk to, or who to go about a life without my two loves. 

I felt overwhelmed, every single thought in my head said “rugby, wrestling, I have got to play again”, until one day it didn't. I made sure to be persistent with my doctor’s visits, physical therapy, and repairing injections. Finally, hope found me, something I had never had before “hope” so kind and bittersweet, I never wanted to let it go. Every single day I woke up hoping the pain would go away, hoping the doctors would call, hoping I could stop watching from the sidelines and help my teammates. I didn’t want to just support my team with words of encouragement but I wanted to be there alive and well, ready to win. Hope was my newfound love, there to help me every single step of the way.  

    Finally, the day had come, I was able to play again, the doctors had told me it was risky, that if I got injured to that extreme again there would be no chance of full recovery. I was terrified to step on that field. This feeling was new to me, I had never felt the fear of ‘injury’. It is deeper than most, knowing that every step you take on that field could be your last, it makes you play the game completely different. I told my coach I was terrified to play again and she looked at me and smiled and said “you’ll never know unless you try”. I knew I had to do something, I could not let fear control me any longer, after months of depression and doubts, I couldn’t let fear win. I told myself “you will regret it more if you just give up, you have got to see it through”, and so I did. I got on the field and played like I had never played before, cautious, anxious, and eager to win. 

    Being out there was hard, physically and mentally, I felt broken and sometimes I still do. The pain lingers and while I will never play the same as I did, I will play smarter, harder, and better than I had ever played before. There was no way I was going to let this injury affect my future, I had to prevail. Even though I had to give up wrestling, I do not ever let it get me down on the rugby field. Although the memories may creep up with a feeling of sadness of what it was like to have night before a meet jitters, warming up on the mat the day of, taking that first shot during the match, or pinning the girl and the glory moment of the win along with the adrenaline that follows it. I play with one hundred and fifty percent, pushing every limit I can without getting injured, because if it happens to be my last game, it better be my best. I know that my body will never be fully healed and that is just something that I have had to come to accept even though it saddens me, but now I know my limits, I had to fall apart to see what truly meant the most to me. If I had not taken that last bit of hope and put it all out on that field, I would have never forgiven myself. 

    Even though I lost one of my true loves, I gained hope and she taught me that you will never truly know how your future will turn out unless you try. She taught me that if there is even just an ounce of a chance to make the change no matter the possible risks, you need to do it. Finally, she taught me that hope can take you far, to places that will pull you out of a dark space that you had never thought you would get out of. Hope gives you a sense of stability without any absolute guarantee that it will work out, it is almost as if you have one bullet left and you are taking that one shot in the dark. So if anyone in this world needs some sort of motivation to persevere even if the chances of reaching your version of success and happiness are slim, take that chance. Let this story be the source of motivation or hope that you have been searching for throughout a long, dark, and hard journey. In life there will always be doubts that you will have to defeat with courage, obstacles in the way that you will be determined to overcome, a sense of confusion and wonder for what the future will hold that you, like me, will have to depend on hope to just keep on going, and an ending that may not be the exact ending that you have been looking for, but this ending will be the inevitable ending that was meant just for you.