Getting Back

To the sport I've loved:

I'm sorry, I abandoned you late last year, I guess the love and passion for you I've had ever since being a five-year-old girl went away over the previous two years; perhaps the pressure had gotten to me and sport I've enjoyed so dearly simply wasn't enjoyable anymore.

I'm not going to lie, it felt good to not play anymore at the start but after shooting around for a while one random day, I realized what I've been missing all these months and after thinking about it again, I started playing again.

But I won't be regaining any of the forms I had before anytime soon. Before I stopped playing, I was trying out to be on the national team and had good odds on being selected but now I only score ten points in a game and my shooting is washed up but I can blame that on the girl's ball being too small and I'm not used to training with it.

But what else can I blame for the way I've been playing lately, my lack of training with the team or my lack of conditioning but whatever it is, it is only on me to fix the issue and if I don't plan on fixing it, no one can.

I might as well quit again and this time and not return. But that won't be fulfilling the dream I had ever since I held the basketball that came rolling to my legs when I was five and when I shot the ball using only my left hand and being literally beneath the basket on that one sunny day of 2006.

After that day, I consistently went to the basketball court right beneath where I lived and continued training myself. I didn't have a proper coach until I was in grade three and I started with underhand shooting until I was seven when I finally had a normal basketball form.

Fast forward to when I was nine, I was admitted to hospital for acute appendicitis and stayed there for ten days after I had it removed. After this long absence from basketball, my shot became more accurate and I could shoot from a longer range, perhaps it's the unforeseen power of having your appendix removed, maybe I would never know.

I was twelve when I finally had my first friendly game against a neighborhood school where we won by a blowout. Call me anything, but I still remember dropping seventeen points on them.

Kobe Bryant has always been my idol growing, an avid Lakers fan ever since 2010. Perhaps call me an old-age bandwagon but don't blame a nine year old who thought to support the team who won a championship during their year of birth was compulsory. But hey, I'm still sticking to them now and it has not been good years for us.

I got into secondary school and the team wasn't better and the competition was stronger. The training was intense because of the coach being American and Americans take their basketball seriously.

We got bronze medal in our district, which was a pretty alright accomplishment for me. The next season, I was promoted to a higher grade in basketball, which means playing with people older than me. I didn't have much improvement in my skill set because my previous coach retired and my new one was straight up bad at it and wasn't about the training.

We still won the district championship.

Fast forward to now, that was the only championship I have ever won, I tried my best to carry my team to win another one but failed twice the previous year, only winning bronze and silver.

I was heartbroken, more than I could ever be, training all this time and not winning anything. I do take the blame anyway if only I had scored and shot better, maybe we would've won that game. After that game, my interest and love for basketball went downhill, it became more of a burden so I stopped training and was not interested in the game anymore.

But now I think I'm ready again to take on the challenge of the game again, I hope to get back my form again. I hope to train and become what I used to be, except without championships.