"Goalie" response
Tuesday November 17, 2011
Tonight was are district finals. We won. It was the hardest game we had played in a while. When the final buzzer had gone off both teams were nearly in tears. My team had swarmed me. Yelling and scream, smiling and cheering. I'm happy on the outside but on the inside the pain kills me. It sears through my chest, arms, and legs. I can already feel the bruises beginning to form and my jersey is drenched in sweat and a little bit of blood. I contiue to smile and cheer but on the inside I feal like yelling and scream.
I walk home from the rink, my arms and legs screaming. I limp down the street and wince as I open the gate to my house. I unlock the door and limp over the threshold dragging my goalie gear behind me. I go into the laundry room and release my pain and anger on my dreadful equipment. I can hear my mom upstairs vacuming. A small part of me feels bad about messing up her neat and organized room but that part is drowned out by my hatred for the equipment. After a while I calm down and leave the room, my equipment scattered around the room. I walk out of the room and slowly make the hard and long journey up the stairs. At the top i run into my dad. He asks me about the game. I tell him the score and about the dozen of great saves I made. My happy expression doesn't fool him. He can see my pain buried deep under the smile. His next question catches me by surprise. "Why do you do it?" he says. My answer is short and in the form of a new question, but it explains everything. "What choice do I have? What else have I ever wanted to do?"