Life & Chances
婉純的11歲孫女

It drifts in and out, I get it, yet both gradually and efficiently it disappears. I work my way back up, something about it is perfect, but a few minutes later, we are back to square one. Sweat trickling, blood pumping, breathing hard, with a tight rhythm. The air around me is the only thing that keeps my mind alive. In this dimension excitement and noise are nonexistent. I can only hear 3 things, the rest is gone in the wind. Back to square one, the wind does not help everything. Hour after hour, bruise after bruise, it is never enough. Every day beat after beat, it is the beat of life. Change your arms, manipulate your brain, one wrong move and you’re spilling out onto the floor. If you fall apart, put yourself back together.

This could be every aspect of someone's life. When you go down, instead of someone helping you they just tell you to get up. When you slide, just because you are safe doesn’t mean that you don’t have to get up and keep running. If you aren’t doing well, well, you have to start doing well before you get pulled. When all is going wrong you still do everything in your power to salvage something out of it or if possible never let it slip.

In softball, you have to be a risk taker. When I was on third base and the ball slipped past the catcher. Many things were going through my head at a very fast pace. Go now a part of me is urged. No, stay another part of me thought. It’s now or never I thought. I chose now. I spirited forward as adrenaline rushed through me. As the wind pounded against my face I smiled, it was like flying. But nothing will be in flight forever. I thought as the pitcher got the ball. Strictly because of instinct I slid down into the dirt avoiding the tag. I got up and ran back into the dugout, breathless, happy even.

But your teammates being proud doesn’t always satisfy the hunger deep within. What you truly want is to satisfy yourself and fulfill that hunger to do well. Everyone has it in them somewhere beneath the surface. What it shows for, and whether or not it shows at all is the question. Do you use that hunger to channel adrenaline? Or do you let it run wild and channel you? The problem is, to fulfill anything you need to work, and when I say work I mean it. If you want to fulfill you need to work hard. There is a saying that says, You can only be considered an expert at something once you’ve put at least 10,000 hours into it. I always work with a saying in my mind, Out Work, Out Play. It means the harder you work the better you’ll do. So if you work at something more than another person does, it is most likely that if you are in any sort of competition with them on that topic, you will win.

But softball isn’t the only thing I have a hunger to do well in. With everything, I have a hunger to do well. Well, not everything, but most things. I have a hunger to do well in sports, yes, but also in school. When I juggle school, homework, and sports, it can end up a cluttered mess. But I can get it into neat piles. The thing is, I like things to be perfect, So imagine it, these piles are not only neat, they are also laminated and no longer piles they are now filed into a binder. Sometimes I am up doing homework until 9. This is basically what happens if I don’t get my homework done. I come back at 8:00 on Wednesdays with a face full of sweat. I am hot and still need to eat dinner. Usually, I will microwave some leftovers, then shower. By then it is around 8:30 I brush my teeth and do my homework and it can take forever. I swipe my hair from my face, it is so dark I can barely see so I turned on my lamp. This lamp only lit a dim space so I began to furiously scribble whatever I needed to write. When I couldn’t think of anything I just doodled until something came to mind. When I finished I silently walked through the dark house. Through the empty rooms with the shelves of books, and paper on the table with a creaking noise throughout the house. When I reached the bench I carefully placed my homework into my backpack and walked back to my bedroom. Exhausted, I was out within seconds.

We are back to square one, but this time it is subtly different. It is like taking off a pair of glasses you don’t need. This time it isn’t always blood pumping, but your head with a rainbow in it just trying to contain itself. Everything is flooding in and out, it is complete chaos, and there is no control. Every cell present has at least one thing in common. They are attracted to the gate. When they go through it they become neat and filed, completely orderly. It is a fight between the cells and the gate. The cells love the chaos but they want to go through the gate. This is the war fought inside of my brain.