Back On My Tippy Toes

"Hurry up! Players to the field in three minutes!" 

Sometimes life can take you in complete different directions. Ones that you never would have known you would be taking.

Like now. I am right now getting ready to play football for my team, the Falcons. Something that no girl has ever done here in Gladeview, Kansas until me, Maya Hernandez.  I wasn't raised to do this, nor did I ever fathom of becoming a female football player. Football was something that just came out of nowhere, but it was my savior.  It kept me busy so I couldn't feel the pain and helped me release my anger at the world. 

I used to be a ballerina. I used to love it especially doing it with my twin sister, Petra. We would laugh, sing, and dance all the time. My dad would always take us to lessons and would sometimes attempt a few moves but that always ended up in disaster.  But that was all before she left this world. All before Petra and my dad died in a drunk car accident. Their deaths tore me completely into strings of worthless heep of flesh and bones. To lose someone you love affects you deeply in your heart, penetrating it into your soul, making you feel grief and useless. But losing the most important people of your life, is completely different. The pain is double, the grief is a thousand more times powerfull, and the uselessness consumes you. I couldn't bear it.  So I quit dancing. It reminded me too much of them and of all the precious moments that I took for granted.  The memory of them was, is, and will be alway lingering  in my mind, and the reality that I would never see them again always slams me in the face when I dance.

So that's where football comes in. Football was my escape and my emotion reliever. I guess football was a way for me to rebel against all this. It helped me cope with all this.  As the second oldest of a big family with a widowed mother, I had to grow up fast, and I had to put on a brave face for my family. But, in football, I don't have to put up a front. 

"Hurry up, Hernandez!"

 I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and slipped on my helmet. I pulled myself together, wiping away a few stray tears and quickly ran out to the field.

I drew in one final breath before I came out. I could see the lights and the fans cheering from the stands. My opponent is on other side of the field, glaring in their bright yellow uniforms. 

Time to play...