part 1: born sinner

i am a creature of habit. my series of daily routines borders on obsessive compulsive, but i crave order and practiced convention — it just feels right. i don’t even set alarm clocks anymore — my body wakes me up every single morning at 5:00 almost without fail because it just knows its time for work.

relatedly, my body and mind know that once spring league rolls around, it’s almost time for club tryouts. i have played with the same club team from the jump — chicago’s spicy tuna. they took a chance on me when i was a shitty college kid, and i’ve been with them ever since the team started. five years. this spring i found myself at a crossroads — i was about to graduate and still had no idea where life would take me. if i landed a job in madison (which was the likeliest outcome), it would be much harder to make the weekly commute back to chicago for practice, as i had done for two years in grad school. i didn’t have friday classes then, and i was able to leave work early on thursdays and attend both thursday and saturday practices without missing too much in my “regular” life. but even that was hard. having a job and more responsibilities and obligations would make that even harder.

it was weird to think that for the very first time, i wasn’t sure of my club situation. i know that seems petty and funny that such a small thing could throw me off so much, but for the first time ever when it came to club, i truly felt quite lost.

i know what you might be thinking. spicy tuna, maybe the third best women’s team in chicago, and heist, a young, talented team that had qualified for nationals every year of the team’s existence — how hard could the decision be?!

here, i go back in time to a writer-crush, who pondered a similar hypothetical situation.

could i leave spicy tuna? i owed so much of my development, both as a player and as a person, to that team. they showed me love and took me when i was raw and terrible. they gave me real responsibility as a young, inexperienced player — none of that bailout third handler, “here why don’t you just set the stack” shit. after years of the failed collegiate “let’s make j a handler” experiment, spicy put me in positions that felt more natural to me — both as a cutter and on the d-line. it wasn’t until after that first year playing with them that i truly felt like i came into my own as a player — i finally figured out where i belonged. i had the opportunity to learn from some amazing cutters and defenders, who, to this day, i still try to model my game after. as i kept coming back to the team, spicy also had the confidence in me to let me try new things — like playing o-line, for one! me? o-line? what?! — and had the patience to support and teach me when i failed. after five seasons, i felt confident playing within our system, and i felt comfortable with just about everyone on the team. i had become a contributor, and of course, a part of the ever-important asian line. it felt like i owed it to the team and my teammates to stay; it wouldn’t feel right to play for any other team.

on a different level, i was with spicy from the start. i was there when we were getting our teeth kicked in by nemesis and getting straight up blanked by revoloution at chc (don’t think i forgot about that!). but we were coming together. we were getting better, every single year. we were getting younger and faster and more athletic, and building great chemistry. i honestly felt that with better recruitment and retainment, we were building something. i truly felt that we could eventually not only beat nemesis, but earn a bid to nationals. call me delusional, but i wanted so, so, so fucking badly to help build a team from the ground up. i remember how angry and discouraged i felt whenever people left our team for greener pastures (read: nemesis). wouldn’t you rather be david than goliath? why didn’t anybody want to work for it anymore? if i left for heist, i would be abandoning these people who had always had my back. if i left for heist, i would be abandoning this thing that i had helped to build. if i left for heist, i would have felt like a sell-out and a traitor. i developed real relationships with my teammates — i had played with some of them for five years — and i didn’t know if i could ever leave that. i didn’t know that i could feel the same connection, chemistry, or love for another team. it wouldn’t feel right to play for any other team, you know?

at the same time, how could i not consider trying out for heist? the team featured some of the best players in the world. so many of the players who beat my ass in college were playing for them. they were the best women’s team in the midwest. i remember playing heist x and heist y at cooler one year. both teams dismantled us. their split squads. it’s not even funny. but they were young and fun and fucking talented. i remember very vividly sitting in class and watching heist play brute squad on the livestream in 2012 and how fucking close they were. how could i not want the opportunity to try out for something like that? how could i not want the opportunity to have a chance at club nationals?

after a lot of agonizing and a lot of self-doubt (i don’t even want to get into that — i don’t know where i’d start), i decided to try out for heist. i had accepted a job offer in madison, and was so, so tired of driving. i was tired of missing out on summer and life in madison, no matter how much i loved chicago and all of the people in it. most of all, i was so tired of wondering whether or not i was good enough, tired of sitting at home every october and talking about how i’d played against so-and-so currently playing in sarasota (and then frisco) and how i thought i was at least as good as her. i thought that even if i didn’t make it, at least i would finally know whether or not i was good enough. i could always be a practice player, or play some fun mixed with my friends. i just had to try.

but heist was scary. it was fucking terrifying. heist came with so many problems and questions i had never before thought about.

could i deal with the expenses of playing elite club? i know i had just accepted a job, but shit, it was a short-term contract government job, and it’s not like i was making epic-money (epic the company, not the adjective). certainly an upgrade over paying for grad school and working an unpaid internship and two part-time jobs, but still, not quite in the “ball ’til i fall” neighborhood. was it a smart fiscal decision?

am i good enough? my god. the hours i spent agonizing over this one. i had built my identity around being an ultimate player — what if it turned out i wasn’t a very good one? silly, i know. because at the end of the day, being “good” doesn’t even remotely factor into how i’d like to be remembered as an ultimate player. but let’s be forreal for real: my work ethic, my character, and my reputation as a teammate wouldn’t get me on the field. could i produce? could i make positive things happen?

before tryouts, i played with and against multiple heist players at goaltimate. i remember thinking to myself, “don’t fuck up in front of georgia. just don’t fuck up in front of georgia.” i’d make sure that i was marking heist players, so i could understand just how talented and tough these women were — so i could understand just what i could be getting myself into. i remember one time we played kelly’s team at goalty, and i swear to god, i wonder if kelly even broke a sweat guarding me/with me guarding her. i remember once she “streaked deep” (read: casually loped while i frantically sprinted behind her) towards the goal and she was LOLing the whole way. pretty sure she skied the shit out of me for a goal. then in spring league, i was on laurel’s team, and then it was, “don’t fuck up in front of laurel. just don’t fuck up in front of laurel.” they were fucking good. sometimes i got beat down. sometimes it was discouraging. but i loved the challenge. i loved the challenge of playing against the best, and trying my hardest to play up to their level.

but even if i was good enough to make the team, could i deal with not playing? i started naming a couple players here, but then i realized that i was basically just typing the entire team roster. we’re talking multiple all-region selections. foty’s. people who have been in and won the callahan discussion. these were the people i had to compete against who played my position. how in the actual fuck could i ever see the light of day on the field? after being one of the go-to players during my senior year of college (which highly inflated my ego) and being a contributor who played a healthy number of points for spicy, could i go back to not playing as much? could i check my ego at the door and be okay with sitting? could i stay engaged and be ready whenever my name was called? could i bench mob it?

would i really be “earning” it if i was doing so on the backs and talents of other players? i had become obsessed with the idea of helping to build and develop spicy into a regional title contender. i just wanted so badly to see it through like that. i wanted the spurs, not the heat/cavaliers. would it be the same if i wasn’t producing as much? would i still feel like i had accomplished something if i wasn’t contributing as much (or worse, at all)?

i don’t know how to describe how much and how intensely i battled with all those questions. i had these debates in my head over and over. the same ones. just as with the decision on whether or not to try out, i’d flip flop back and forth between believing that it would all be okay and i was good enough and i’d be fine and believing that i was just the absolute worst and was i going to embarrass myself and would i rage quit or fake an injury to save myself some face and oh god this could go so poorly. but i decided that i was good with all of it. around that time, i read a quote, “fear has two meanings: ‘forget everything and run’ or ‘face everything and rise’.” it was time to face my fears and stop running in the face of doubt. at least i’d know, right?

but then timing decided something different. the first tryout weekend was my grad school graduation. the second tryout weekend would happen when i was in europe with my family. nothing could be done about the trip — it was a graduation present from my parents. but god, that stupid graduation. i didn’t care about it, and certainly didn’t want to go to it. i pleaded with my parents to let me skip it. it wasn’t a big deal; they had already seen me graduate once and it was a thousand hours long and so boring and they didn’t even announce the correct things when i walked across the stage. i tried so desperately, but my parents were unrelenting. i was deflated.

well, fuck it. i had already made up my mind about heist, and even if i could only contribute as a practice player, i wanted to be a part of the team in any capacity i could. if i wasn’t even good enough for that, it would help for me to know what i needed to improve upon. so i signed up for their interest/tryout list and explained my situation. i went to their various pods and scrimmages, and it was sometimes discouraging, but also hella challenging and fun. it was everything i was looking for. so imagine how fucking geeked i was when robyn and rose said that they would consider an extended tryout for me. i knew it would be tough, especially after seeing the talent that showed up to the mixer/scrimmage the day before actual tryouts (hi liza minor, torching everyone all over the field), but i had a chance! i was so fucking elated i actually called my mom to tell her that i had an extended tryout, and proceeded to launch into a forty five minute discussion of whether or not i thought i was good enough. at the end, as an aside, i tossed in, “oh yeah, i accepted a job offer with dpi today.” she deadpanned, “anything else?”

so i went to europe and ran like a maniac every day. i lifted, i threw by myself. i visualized myself playing well. i talked about the opportunity non-stop. i was more interested in talking about an extended tryout than i was in talking about my job (or anything else, really). i’m sure my parents wanted to strangle the shit out of me.

a couple years ago, i wrote “play at club nationals” on top of a bucket list of sports-related things i wanted to do in my life. it scared me shitless to write it out.* i felt the same way about heist. it scared me just to say, ‘heist‘, because, jesus, what if i jinxed myself just by saying it? i didn’t want to trick myself into believing that i was good enough for it. i didn’t want to get my hopes up.
*more later.

monday, june 9, 2014. i got the e-mail from corinne just after lunch. (admittedly, i had been refreshing my inbox all day…) and then it came. i was offered a roster spot. i think my heart jumped straight out of my chest. i forced myself to wait something like two excruciating hours before i responded, because i wanted to seem cool. but i wasn’t cool about it. i wish i remember what i did, i probably fist pumped to myself and got wild hype like a lame. but man, i did it.

all the fear and doubt and guilt over leaving spicy (but i’m still playing for you. and you too, illinois. and shanghai.) and the “what if’s” and the “i can’t’s”… but i did it. i earned it. i’m really proud, and i don’t even know how to describe how happy i am, but all i know is that now i just want to work harder. i can do better.

still chasing.