To The Girl Wearing My Field Hockey Jersey,

Before I even start this letter to you, consider this a warning; I have regrets from high school and I’m about to dive into one, so don’t be caught off guard if I start making assumptions. This is based on both my experiences and my feelings (but I know I’m right; you’ll see). Anyways, when you’re in high school, getting older seems like this foreign concept where you’re never going to actually grow up. If you play sports, you dread going to practice every day for fall, winter, AND spring, and you often feel like you never have enough time to do anything else. You spend the next four years thinking to yourself when is this going to end, especially senior year when it’s bittersweet but you believe you’re ready to leave this place and move on to the next chapter in your life, being able to make decisions on your own. But guess what my girl, you’re not. You won’t ever be prepared to take that jersey off. I can’t help but still consider myself number 37. You won’t ever be prepared for that last game of the season. I for one, wasn’t.

Last game. I was standing on the field, the left side since I played left wing, playing against our rivals in one of the state games. In a game, before the whistle blows, before anyone starts hitting the ball around, before anyone starts talking, it’s quiet. And I mean very quiet. This, is one of my favorite moments of a field hockey game. The anticipation. You’re standing there, some players in a lunge position, stick in hand, goggles and mouth guard (unfortunately and annoyingly) on, and you’re breathing softly to yourself, waiting to hear that ref signal its time for the game to start. In this moment before my last game of my entire high school career, I took a moment to reflect. It finally hit me this would be the last time I would be playing with these girls, with this school, with this uniform on. This exact moment I could never get back again. I began to become very upset. I looked around at my teammates, smiling at them faintly, but then I was happy. I was happy because I knew I would make this game the best one yet and play my heart out.

That exact game is one you will never get to experience in that uniform, only I will. All the games I played, rain or shine, in that uniform you will never know what it was like. Do you think about that? Do you think about the girls and their legacies that wore that jersey before you? How about the uniforms you left behind in elementary and middle school, do you think about the people wearing them now or how you left those memories behind and exchanged them for new ones? People always dreaded wearing other people’s uniforms, I for one did in the beginning, but now looking back I love this high school tradition of ours and many schools that you get to wear a jersey that girls and girls before you wore. You get to experience everything in those jerseys, and at the end of the season I always was upset I couldn’t keep it. You think to yourself this is my jersey, my number, my sports career, but you don’t think about all the other girls both before and after you that think the exact same thing. So guess what, it isn’t yours. Maybe for the time-being it is but you share it with a handful of other girls with different stories, different backgrounds, different goals, different accomplishments, and most importantly, different memories. And as I said, you share it with me, the girl who still defines herself as #37. I feel like its mine, and I’m having trouble knowing its not mine anymore. When I wore that jersey I thought it’d be mine forever. Don’t worry, you’ll go through this withdrawal too honey.

First game. That jersey has a story, my girl. Freshman year, I put that jersey on, #37, for the first time, and I scored a goal. It was our first game of the season, and I remember it perfectly. My hair was in two French braids, the weather was about 90 degrees and sunny (a very hot late August day), and it was my mom’s birthday, August 29th. It was, of course the blue jersey since the game was on our home turf. You may have noticed a faint “orangey” smell to the jersey and that is from all the oranges I ate at half time with my team as we discussed strategy and rejuvenated. Those oranges gave me energy, and the reason the jersey smells like that is because I’m a messy eater who loves to spill all over herself. But c’mon, there are worse things that jersey could smell like than fresh fruit.

The stories I could tell you are endless while wearing that jersey, but I need you to remember that the moments were equally on the field as they were off the field. You don’t know how many times I walked loud and proud in that jersey (hint: every time I wore it). You don’t know how many times I celebrated with my teammates after a big win, or that tantrum I had when we were in overtime and I got kicked out of the game and we lost. Literally, I fell to the floor in agony and was so fed up and upset and disgusted with those unfair refs and the old lady on the sidelines calling me names and distracting me the entire game. Maybe it’s better you don’t know these memories so you can make your own, but I need you to know this… that jersey is not just a jersey. There, in your hands, you are holding girl’s memories since the fricken 1900s when this little private school started. You think all those memories are endless, and you keep thinking about next game and next game, instead of focusing on the present. Well let me give you some advice sweetheart, stay in the present. People always look ahead in life, to the next season, next sport, next year, next team, but don’t think about this season, this sport, this year, this team. You don’t think about how much you’ll miss all those days when they are gone, and 99% of people therefore take those moments for granted, I’m certain. Think to yourself, do you think more about those things you used to be a part of, or those you want to be a part of in the near or far future? I know for a fact it’s the future, because everyone is always looking ahead.

As you wear my jersey, and play my game on my field, beautiful field mind you, I need to tell you a few things. First, think about all the girls before you as well as the ones that come after you. The ones that picked that jersey, of course getting last pick since freshman don’t get to choose until the seniors, juniors, and sophomores pick, then you. The ones who may have been really good, scoring all the goals or making all the assists, later on playing for college teams or even semi-pro or professional. Even the ones, especially the ones, that are the little girls learning how to play the game and beginning to fall in love with it, just like you did one time long ago. But it wasn’t long ago, it seems like just yesterday when I first picked up a field hockey stick. It feels like just yesterday when I picked my jersey and sat down in the health room to pass them out and get a pep talk for our first game. It feels like just yesterday when I scored in our first game and wore that jersey for the first time on that field, looking down and thinking to myself how happy I was to be a part of this team and proud to wear this jersey. I didn’t know what these next four years would hold, what this next season would hold, what this game would hold, but, I was excited. You better think about all these girls, especially me, because I let it slip away and was also claiming it all as my own. But it’s not yours, it’s ours, we share it.

Secondly, and this is more of a realization, but when you look back on these days, you’ll remember just how easy life really was. And then it’ll all hit you. The theme days, the pep rallies, the bus rides home blasting “white rap” and dancing, yelling at the freshman to get the cages, balls, water jug, and med kit because you were lazy upperclassmen who believed you had authority over the freshies. You’ll miss weirdly dancing on the field when you scored a goal (my specialty), playing in the rain, playing in the snow, playing in the burning hot weather in August. You’ll miss going to college field hockey games together, pasta nights, buffalo wild wings (conveniently right next to our school), big team sleepovers, passing a ball around in the hallway to get pumped up and signing your name on the ball. You’ll miss warming up to your awful warmup playlist (or maybe you’ll be lucky and get a good one), getting in accidents on the way, going to the bathroom in creepy bathrooms and porta potties, the long bus rides to what some people liked to call “bumblefuck”. You’ll even miss just seeing your teammates in the hallway, which always brightened my mood, and hanging with the people you first called your teammates, then your friends. You’ll miss that one time your car died after a 2 hour away game, and you had to sit at school until midnight for somebody to come tow it away. You’ll miss that time you snuck to Dunkin Donuts before practice started, even though your coach repeatedly told you not to and you would get in trouble, but you did it anyway, we all did. Most of all, you’ll miss the people, your teammates, their parents, their grandparents, their siblings, and everyone who helped you along the way. You’ll miss the family you became a part of. A family that was home. Something that felt familiar and always right and comforting.

That was all once just mine. I didn’t share it with anyone, and even though those memories were with other people, it was what I remembered and got from those memories that was all mine, and still with me. I think almost every day still about my high school field hockey team, and all my teams and families I was a part of, whether it was clubs, groups, friends, or extracurriculars. I just can’t let it go, and I don’t necessarily think I have to.

When you think to yourself that jersey represents all your accomplishments and failures, you deny to think about how it represents mine and all those before and to come after you. I scored goals, I missed goals, I always tried to do this one reverse shot that only worked one time against North Plainfield and my coach pulled me out of the game but still, I was happy. I let people go by me, I did spin moves and L moves and lifts and chops over people’s sticks and beat past tons of defenders. I smiled as well as cried of joy and frustration. I smiled even when it was simply lining up to check in our shin-guards, cleats, mouth-guards, goggles, and the no jewelry rule I hated, to the time I smiled when I was nominated captain senior year. I cried like a little newborn after every game we lost because I had so much passion for that team and belief in them, more faith than I ever had for anything else in my life. I bawled when it was my last game ever, which is obviously understandable.

Bottom line, that jersey is a legacy. It’s a legacy with a bunch of mini legacies that each have their own individual and unique story. No two legacies are alike. So my third and final advice to you; go out and make your legacy the best version you can because soon it’ll be your time to pass it on to the next person, and only you will remember each and every moment you wore that jersey. I and all those previous expect a lot from you. But in the end my friend, no one will ever do that jersey justice, because that jersey is not just a jersey, it is so much more than that, more than anyone, more than you or me, will ever comprehend.

And remember my girl, this doesn’t just apply to field hockey and sports. This applies to all activities, and just life in general. It’s a part of growing up and you can’t do anything about it.

XOXO,

#37, 2012-2016