It has been a couple years since I have laced up my cleats and stepped onto that diamond for the first practice of the season. The field was my home every spring. I grew up there. I spent eleven years playing softball, eleven years building my skills, eleven years learning about the game, and eleven years learning life lessons on that diamond. Eleven years is a long time and I didn’t just let it all disappear the minute I decide to put my bag away for the last time.

After sitting the bench for a season, a lot had changed. Nothing felt right anymore. My knee would never be the same and the team would never be the same; I felt like the game had already been taken away from me and I couldn’t go back. The time was right to move on and put it behind me. No matter what I will always have softball to thank for certain things in my life.

Thank you for the friendships

Playing softball meant that I spent a lot of years with the same girls. Season after season there were always a few of the same girls on my teams. Spend that long with anyone and odds are, unless you have reasons to be enemies, you will end up friends. When we started playing for school, the team was always made up of the same girls. I can count a lot of friendships that began on the field.

Thank you for teaching me “there is no crying in softball"

Bruises and scrapes were badges of honor on the field. Getting hit by a pitch just meant you took a second and shook it off as you walked down to first base. The scrape down the leg from the slide into second just meant you were giving it your all. In softball, I never let injuries get me down. One time, I was warming up and got hit in the face with a ball; I teared up and laughed then kept throwing. That was what we did.

I know, it is kind of hypocritical to say this being that I let a knee injury end my career, but I didn’t go down without a fight. I dislocated my kneecap and sat out one day of workouts. The next week I got back out there, I played with all my heart during tryouts, and I made the team. I worked by butt off at therapy and did all I could at practice. Unfortunately, my doctor kept me out the whole season.

Thank you for teaching me commitment

I have to admit, when I first started playing I wasn’t a true softball player. I hated playing in the rain and I hated the heat even more. I used to beg my parents to not make me go, yet their response was always the same. It went something along the lines of, "I had committed and said I was playing so I had to go". The team was counting on me to be there because I said I would. I was taught if I said I was going to do something, then I did it.

Thank you for teaching me to never give up

A strikeout was a strikeout. The next time I stepped into the box I just had to try harder and be smarter. If I missed getting the out, the game wasn’t over; it was just time to shake it off, keep my head up and keep playing. No matter how tough the team battled in a game, we always fought until the end. A game wasn’t over until the last out was made. One loss was not the end of the season; the next game was another day and another chance for a win.

Its been a couple years, but not a season passes by that I don’t miss it, that I don’t wish I heard the cracking of a bat or the snap of a ball into a glove. Not a season goes by that I don’t think about playing just one more time.