Soccer

My Case for Hobbies

I started playing soccer again.

She’s the Man (2006)

In fact, I have a game in one hour. I’ll take the L train to Williamsburg, throw on my yellow jersey, and adjust my shin guards so they sit right.

I played soccer my whole childhood. My parents are both tall and athletic, my Dad an ex basketball player and my Mom a recreational swimmer. From a young age, they threw me into youth leagues where I kicked around and rolled in the mud with other kids.

I’m not great. My strengths as a player are really in my speed and team spirit. I know I’m fast and I know I care. Enough to chase an offender down the field or to yell to my teammates when I need.

Are my ball-handling skills perfect? No. My kicks the most powerful? Certainly not. But I love playing soccer again. And it has really helped me understand this: I Deserve Recreational Hobbies.

When is the last time you picked up a ball? Threw a catch with your friends? Danced because you wanted to?

In my own life I am often never sitting still. I run, run, run in New York City and when I am not working I am usually consumed by my desire to micromanage my free time efficiently.

Work not until 9 am? Take a 7:30 am pilates class and then head straight to the office after. No meetings until 1 pm? Schedule a long run and meet someone quick for a catch-up before dashing to the office.

Finally a Sunday of rest? Optimize the morning to do as much as possible then keep going until you feel exhausted.

I am always going. I often do not know how to stop. I struggle every day to sit still and remind myself that I deserve to sit down. I know this experience to be unique not just to me but to my mother, whose broad shoulders I can just see now, draped in the same brown floral apron she always wears, wiping her slender hands on her pants and dashing to another corner of the house to continue moving, dusting, rearranging.

And what I want to tell you all now is that soccer makes me pause and return to myself.

It is with soccer that I get to feel childish again. Gawky and awkward, the same way I was before I gained internet access and knew I was a woman of the world.

In my soccer playing I am taken seriously. I feel my legs pumping and understand how cool it is my body can move. I can run down a field and feel wind on my face. When sweat beads pour down my cheek I lick them for salt. When I skinned my knee last week at our game I wore it like a badge. And I didn’t feel it sting until the subway ride home.

Soccer knees

It is in hobbies that I come back to myself. It is in hobbies that I live for me and experience, unfettered, the joy of recreation. And it is within hobbies like soccer that I understand just how much I need play to survive.

Our soccer season is not going so great. The team I’m on is Co-ed. We have 5 really good players, 3 medium good, 2 good and 2 that have not showed up since week 1. I am somewhere in the middle.

I hate when we lose. I get angry at the referee when they make bad calls. I want desperately for us to win. I love to win. I have a competitive side that needs someplace to live. I am a woman who does not want to compete with other women in life. What I want is for us to win and destroy the other team.

Yes, I so desperately want to win. And I want you to be by my side when I have the ball, because my left foot is stronger than my right. And I want you to hear me when I say “I’m open” and pass to me because you trust me and show that in your body. Then I want to slide tackle the guy on the other team, who did not anticipate me to Deck Him and for that he is a fool who gravely underestimates all 5’11 of me. And I want to yell to you, my gatorade in hand, from the sidelines that you have time, that Leticia is open for the pass, that you all need to communicate more on defense.

Then I want to sit on my bench. Winded, worn out, trickle of blood still falling down my knee staining my cheap Nike shin guards, swishing blue glacier freeze Gatorade in my mouth like Listerine, black soccer beanie on top of my head, sweaty as shit. And feel. For the first time in awhile.

Everything.

We are so fucking back and I will slide tackle you