A Small Step to A Long Journey.

If i were to describe my feelings today in one word, I would say I am pretty excited today. My basketball team mad it to playoffs and, we play our first game friday. Although this is good news, thinking about this brings back old memories, and I have to say thee memories are not the best. Last year was my freshman year and I was starting five on the girls varsity basketball team at my high school. I currently attend James Monroe High School as a sophomore. Last year, we made it to playoffs. We all worked so hard to get to where we were. We were literally shedding blood, sweat, and tears. We won all our playoff games and then finally made it to the championship. Long story short, we lost by six points. Some of my teammates were not that upset at all. They already had championship rings to show off from the year before. Personally, I was devastated. I wanted a ring. I thought that it was not fair. I started to cry while they were medaling us. While the newspaper crew was snapping pictures of the tears streaming down my face, I thought about how selfish my teammates had been, telling me that it didn't matter whether I had a ring or not. It did matter. To me. The funny thing was that these were seniors. "You have another two years to get another ring, Zenab. Don't cry." "Why are you crying, Zenab? Its not a big deal. We still made state." " Zenab, you shouldn't cry. My ring doesn't even fit me its way to big. Who cares?" The only comfort I received was from my older sister who was a junior at the time, and played on the same team. We made it to state but lost the first game by only one point. There was three seconds left on the clock and as it ticked, one of the girls from the other team dribbled up the floor, and made a half-court buzzer beater. The funny thing was I wasn't crying that game. The seniors were the ones crying this time. I was actually laughing as crazy as that sounds. I never did really get along with some of the seniors on my team at the time. They always made up stupid rules that only revolved around seniors. It was like a "senior only" segregation. I walked over to them and said, " Don't worry, you guys. Its not that big of a deal. There is always next year, for some of us..." Its so funny how life works sometimes. Karma to be exact. Now here I am a year later. I have gotten better over the year. Preparing myself for what is to come during playoffs. i have my two sisters at my side; Ayisat a senior and Aliyyat the incoming freshman. Its going to take a lot for us to make it to the championship, some of which I am not yet prepared for, but I am ready to face these challenges. Everyone's journey has to start somewhere. Mine starts friday.