still a hard pill to swallow

If you asked me to explain it I'm not sure I'd know exactly where to start. I could start at the beginning and work my way to the end or start with the end and work my way back to the start. Either way I go about it I'm not sure I can accurately portray how much soccer has meant to me. 

Last night most of the soccer guys went over to Brandon's house for our last McCracken House Party. We played all the games we always have. Diving headers in the pool, the chipping game on the trampoline, and we even made sure we attacked Dave for a little bit.

I can't explain to you all the soccer memories because only people who were there would understand the magnitude of each and every story. Only the boys I called my teammates could ever begin to understand the inside jokes or any of the memories associated with them.

We started out as right around fourteen or fifteen young kids. Our soccer consisted of.

Argenta. Reversible jerseys. SporTrak. The Perogies. The Sentinels. Moon Crazy Raptors. Coach Derek. 

We stuck to our guns and kept most of those kids. Some moved away and others joined in. The core group remained the same.

PISA. Southpointe. Middle school soccer. Travel soccer. Edinboro. Geneva. Stick fight at Geneva.  Coach Derek.

We made it to high school pretty much intact. By the end of it we were only 11 seniors. We made up an entire team. The high school memories are the ones I remember most fondly.

Camp. Slippery Rock. Bethany. Poem Night. Sackifer. Vern. Smelliot. Antiquing. Running after poem night. Warren. Prayers with Johny. Fuckley. 40. Ratboy. Cav. Corsica. Dave's pinky. State Quarterfinals. WPIAL Third Place. Pound some Beaver. Ringgold. Loss. Over. Coach Derek. 

Those last three are the sour tastes left in my mouth from all of my soccer career. Our group left a legacy behind. We changed the face of West Allegheny Soccer. We made our families proud and I know looking back I'm proud to say I played on those teams. I'm proud to call those kids my teammates. If I could go back and do it all again, I would do it in a heartbeat. Not because I regret anything from it, but because it meant more to me than I can explain to you. Playing with a torn quad and a lot of Biofreeze, I didn't care. I wanted to be out there with my friends. I'd do unspeakable things to go back and replay that last game up at Chartiers Valley. I can promise you that if we played that game again there was no way we were losing.

All those bolded words amount to around 1/10 of the memories I have. I'd love to share them with you all, but you really just wouldn't get it.

I miss it so bad it hurts.

NP: Annie- Safetysuit