Rough Draft

A plain 15 by 15-foot room with four plain white walls in the back of my high school parking lot reflects a deeper wound than the scratches and chips left behind by the constant bouncing of a rubber lacrosse ball. This barren room, a room of solitude and confinement echoes my inability to play the sport I love. Bouncing a ball off the wall brings a small amount of familiarity and simplicity to my brain, bringing a distraction from the hectic outside world that haunted me.

As the youngest child in a family with a massive lacrosse legacy, not only playing the sport but also excelling in it was always expected of me. I have often been told by family and friends that I had a lacrosse stick in my hand the second I was capable of holding things. I vividly recall my father telling me I could not go home or eat meals until I had spent a certain amount of time practicing in this room when I was in elementary school. My older brothers were constantly in my ear, trying to give me advice by saying “put your hands an inch lower”, or “tilt your lacrosse stick 5 more degrees to the left”. Growing up spending hours on end in an empty lacrosse wall ball room, mostly in solitude, leaves a lot of room for thoughts to bounce around. Listening to the repetitive sound of the ball hitting the cement wall and then coming back into my lacrosse head seconds later quickly became therapeutic for me.

I never appreciated the act of the repetitiveness and how calming it could be until one of my closest friends Elizabeth, who I grew up playing with, died rather suddenly of a brain tumor in 2012. This blank room soon became a place to dwell on my thoughts for hours on end without being interrupted. My thoughts, which were once so consuming, were soon released for the time being while I repeated the same action over and over again. The familiarity of the muscle memory that was instilled in me at such a young age often reminded me that even though my world was falling apart around me, this was the one constant I had, the one thing I could hold on to and know that bouncing a little rubber ball against the same wall will always be the same.

This small, empty room gave me a new appreciation for life and the sport of lacrosse after the death of my teammate. Such a simple act such as bouncing a ball against a wall was a luxury that I had, and a luxury that people like Elizabeth will never get to experience again. As I stood by myself in this wall ball room for hours on end, which used to seem like a chore, I began to reflect on the past events, and began enjoying the simplest things. I feel as though I had matured beyond my years during this time, creating a new outlook on life.

While recovering from the death of a close friend whose life was taken so early by a rapidly growing brain tumor, in January 2013 I too began feeling the same symptoms that she felt months before passing away. That week, an MRI was scheduled for me to confirm that the horrible events that occurred just one year ago would not happen to me. I anxiously completed the MRI, and waited for the call that could forever change my life. Throughout this time, I constantly hid in the wall ball room as it was the only place I could hide out in and be alone with my thoughts. At this time, the familiarity of the room I had grown up in was the only thing I was holding onto to keep my sanity.

About a week later, while walking to the wall ball room before practice, my phone buzzes. My stomach sank as I instantly knew this call I was receiving was going to be the most important phone call of my life. I anxiously picked up the phone, lacrosse stick in hand, expecting to get a definite yes or no answer which would ultimately tell me the fate of the rest of my life. The doctor on the other line had a concerned tone, starting out with “so here’s the thing…” My stomach sinks. She followed up by saying “We see a mass on your brain but we are not sure what it is. It could possibly be a cancerous tumor, but it also could be nothing.” She says, “You need to come back next week so we can get a clearer image”. Again, I was back to unfamiliarity in my life. That day, I stayed in the wall ball room until darkness came and I could no longer see the ball coming back at me.

A few weeks later, the new test results eventually came back negative, and the mass that was discovered was not dangerous. Throughout those weeks, however, being alone with my thoughts in this small room was the only thing I had to hold on to, the only constant in my life. It was in this room that I grew up, matured, and learned to appreciate life so much more.