Look How Far You've Come

By: Sofie Bonkenburg

About as soon as I could walk, my mom introduced me to soccer. I remember almost nothing besides just a bunch of tiny people walking around. The ground had spiky green turn which would hurt to step on. I remember how cool the air was in the morning and how sunny it felt. Naturally, it wasn't the best experience, and turns out I wasn’t a born-gifted soccer player. At about five years-old, I started doing ballet. Ballet was not my thing, and I really hated it, but for some reason I didn't quit for eight years. Two sports down, and the hobby hunt had just begun. 

A couple years after soccer, I started gymnastics. The first day the coach pulled me aside. He wanted to give me an evaluation and to have a check-in.

“Hello sofie! I'm coach Herven. Let's evaluate your skill level!” He said with a gentle voice.

“Hi, Im sofie.” I responded shakily. 

“You seem nervous.” He stated. “If you are then dont be! Our goal is for you to get better and to have a good time.”

While coach Herven was nice, I did not have the best time with gymnastics. For gymnastics, there is a type of chalk that improves your group. The chalk is white and powdery and it was so fun to coat my hands with. I remember watching all the big girls doing flips and tricks. They would land in a pit of foam or a big squishy mat. When you fell on the mat it would squish under you and recoil a bit. There were some super talented gymnasts where I went. Meanwhile, I couldn't do a backbend. This was mostly because I didn't trust the teachers and I thought they would drop me. I remember there was one coach who helped me a lot. I really liked him and he was super nice. He always wore a shirt that said, “Kiss me I’m Irish.” For some reason I really thought it was funny. Whenever I messed up, he would say, “One, Two believe in what you can do.” Sometime later, he quit and I didn’t see the need to continue gymnastics after that.

Swimming was the first sport I would get into, and I even won some matches and medals. I did not have many friends because, instead of being on a team, it was more of an every person for themself idea. I really liked swimming because whenever my head went underwater all the noise dulled out and I felt really calm and nice. The water would be cool and would seem to cover every part of my body. The tiles on the bottom of the pool were cold and looked like gemstones. I remember how happy I felt when I moved up a rank and was super proud when I won my first race. 

As the time went on however I became more insecure about my body, and as soon as Covid hit, I used that as an excuse to quit. Not going swimming was a turning point and opened up more possibilities. After swimming, summer came around, and I got to experience a lot of sports like tennis camp and football, both of which I really enjoyed. I made a lot of friends in tennis and was super happy when a girl from China invited me to go to Great America with her. Her name was Lyin chang. Lyin only spoke Mandarin and I spoke it too. I was her translator and seven year old me felt very special. 

  After a lot of searching, I was introduced to volleyball one day after school. My mom had told me she had signed me up for volleyball. I remember being very shocked and upset about it. For some reason I didn't like volleyball and thought it was too easy. Guess I had hyped myself up too much through the years. Low and behold, I was not amazing at first. My tiny pea-sized brain couldn't comprehend how if I bumped the ball it somehow went behind me and my sets often hit my face. However, I somehow managed to fall in love with the sport, and my favorite part about it was being on a team. 

After the school season ended, the real pain began. I wanted to try out for a team but I was unsure whether I could do it. Whenever I bumped the ball it would hurt my hands and would leave bruises. One day after I missed a pass my coach came up to me and said “You don't need to get it on the first try, but you do need to try at all.” After that I worked every day and for hours to improve and I started making some progress. I felt like an anime protagonist training, but I wasn't overpowered. I remember on tryout day I was stressed out of my mind. The night before I had slept badly because of my nerves. 

When I got to the tryouts building, I was shaking hard. It had felt like I had sweated out a year of my life already and that I could lie down and die at any moment. I remember right before we all broke out into groups to be evaluated, my coach said, “Don't worry about which team you get on. No matter where you go, you will build a community.” That really helped me focus and do my best.

I soon found my friend and she really made all the nerves go away.

“What are you so worried about?” She said with a cheeky smile.

“Uh, we are at tryouts. This is like what we have been working for!” I said flabbergasted.

“Jeez girl. You need to stop stressing so much! You look like you could have lived out fifty more years of your life.” She said while walking away towards the ball cart.

“Thanks so much.” I reply sarcastically. The overall interaction made me feel so much better and I could feel myself starting to loosen up.

Even though everyone at tryouts was super intimidating, I still managed to do good. After tryouts I learned that I did get onto a good team. It felt like I could finally breathe again . I was really looking forward to next season.

During volleyball this year, I was also on my school team and contributed to that. We also won the first championship for Synapse School, and that was really special. Each point we played felt like life or death, and it was super nerve racking to play. I just tried to concentrate on the smoothness of the ball and how rough the texture is to keep myself calm. It felt like I could feel my heartbeat in my head. The world seemed to stop for a moment as everything faded away. The other team was also really good, and we did lose a few points. However, we managed to prevail and won both sets. This was a huge accomplishment for me, and we celebrated afterwards.

Overall my sports journey has been long and hard, but I'm so glad I did it. I don't regret playing any sport that I did because all of them gave me good experiences. After coming this far I need to give myself some credit and take steps back and look how far I have come. I feel so proud and so lucky to have been able to do so many things. I loved getting to know new people and learning more about myself as well as other people. I am currently also doing volleyball and I'm super excited to see what comes next. I am looking forward to the future.