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I’ve always been warned that change is inevitable. Since I was a kid, my parents would talk about the ability to be able to adapt. The world changes invariably, and curveballs are thrown at us when we least expect them. Despite these warnings, I used to be one of those people who had their life all planned out, with no thoughts given to a back-up plan. I started kicking a soccer ball around when I was three years old, and I have loved the game ever since. Soccer became a part of my identity and I always imagined it would be in my life forever.

The soccer field was always my home, my happy place. It’s difficult for me to describe the feeling I got when I would step onto the field, whether it be for a game or a practice, but it was prodigious. When I was going through something stressful or emotional in my life, soccer was always there for me. But is wasn’t just the sport that made me happy, it was the people that came along with it. I knew ten other girls always had my back, and it made me feel like I could conquer anything and everything. My teammates and I weren’t just friends, we were family. We shared long bus rides together where we would scream songs that were on the radio. We helped each other through the agony of gassers and sprints after an already exhausting practice. We shared smiles and laughs after winning a rival game. It was those moments that defined me, and it was those people that made me feel complete.

When I was growing up my parents introduced me to the movie Friday Night Lights. This was a movie about a football team that was in a small town where football was the only thing that the citizens lived for. The team was strong, and they happened to make it to states. What made this team good was their ability to play for each other. One of my favorite quotes from the movie was “Perfection is being able to look your friends in the eye and know you did everything you could not to let them down”. This quote, to me, described the bond that I had with my teammates and the place where I felt most at home. This movie symbolized my life and I watched it at least once a month. I could watch the movie and relate to the players because even though they played football and I played soccer, our family of teammates was still the same. They would do anything for their family and I would do anything for mine.

As I continued to grow older, I thought I only related to the players in Friday Night Lights because our “families” were essentially the same. It wasn’t until last year that I realized that maybe where I was most at home was when I put on Friday Night Light’s, not the soccer field. A little over a year ago I had a career ending knee injury. I can no longer play soccer even to this day and I haven’t had my family of teammates since. When the news first absorbed, I was an absolute wreck. I didn’t know who I was without soccer, without my teammates. That was my identity for fifteen long years. How does one just lose a part of themselves like that? A month after my injury, I watched Friday Night Lights, and that was the first time I felt whole again. As I curled up on my couch and watched Boobie Miles go through a career ending knee injury and still be whole, I connected to someone for the first time since I had my team. I felt like he was my friend, but I also admired his ability to adapt to change and essentially find himself again. He inspired me to find a new passion and move forward with my life. When he cried, I cried. We were now family to each other.

I am a different person now than I was before, and therefore my family is different now as a result. I always thought I would have my community of teammates forever, but now I realize that life always changes. I have a new family now, a new home. That home is who I become when I put on that movie and realize that I can be okay without something I thought would never be without.