Personal Narrative-Accepting Change In My Softball Career

Accepting change is not easy, and it can be by far one of the most difficult tasks for an immature teenager with expectations as high as the clouds. There is a silver lining, however. At the age of nine, I grasped my very first bat and it felt so, incredibly natural. After taking countless guitar lessons every Tuesday night for several weeks, I had discovered my true calling. At least, that’s what I thought. I started at the recreational level, learning step by steps the basics of the game. It was a work in progress, but I was determined to go competitive with it. Four years later, I was the competitive adolescent I had involuntarily dreamed to be. In the last four years, I had learned the game and grown all the way into the team captain

By now, I was a 17 year old, crazy busy high school student. Meanwhile, I was still juggling my softball career. This was the point in my athletic career, however, that I started considering different options. College was approaching faster than I anticipated, or at least the idea of it was, and I had no idea what was to come of my eight years experience in that diamond-shaped field. If you would have asked me two years ago what my plans for the future were, I would have told you the same thing any competitive athlete would’ve said. It would have been the same, “I want to go to college on a (insert sport here) scholarship, and eventually become a professional after college!” It was unpractical, I know, but it was a dream. Two years later, here I was feeling like very dream I had was changing, and it thoroughly terrified me. I had no idea what career paths I was looking for, and my confidence in my abilities had dropped

One thing I never truly did was experience change. I never knew what real sacrifices were, and I was never realistic with myself. I had dreams and ambitions, and for a while after trying to cram other things into that diamond-shaped hole in my heart, I had built new ambitions and dreams. I became more real with not only myself, but everyone around me. I planned a future out that involved a family and children, a future of success. My future had finally become something I was prepared for, even if I was still unsure of what was to come. I not only matured and found more of who I am as a person, but I became a