Being born athletically disinclined is a hard thing to live with, and to all those who aren’t athletic you’ll know what I’m talking about. You’re the kid who never got involved in high school sports. You might be a liberal arts major, and the phrase ‘I wish I could…’ is way too common in your life.

I’m not sure where it came from; knowing that my dad was a swimmer in high school and my mom was a cheerleader. But as I try numerous sports throughout my life, I begin to realize the denial I’ve been in all these years, of my flawless ability to suck at sports. Coming to terms with my helplessness has been hard, but as I was on the way to this sad reality, I’ve had a few trial and errors. Here is a list of my embarrassing attempts at trying sports:

It all started involving my twin sister, a dance class, and a recital. We were supposed to perform at the end of the year in front of hundreds of parents, family, and friends of the boys and girls ranging from four to twelve in each of the ten performances going on that night. I mean at that time, it seemed like a big deal. I assumed I was doing fine in the class at least until the performance, that’s when it took a turn for the worse. Right in the middle of the routine, I forgot the rest of the dance. So my first instinct, of course, is to run off stage. My poor mom had to be the parent of the only kid who decided to run off stage all night. If I didn’t describe the whole ordeal clearly enough, my mom has it all on tape. Thanks, Mom.

At maybe eight or nine I played tennis, again with my twin sister. At this age they had four kids per side and we all played against each other. I’d say it was more of like a club than a sport for competition. I soon figured out that they usually put me in the back two squares because no one was ever strong enough to hit the tennis ball that far back. I don’t remember why exactly I quit tennis; maybe I was just bored of it.

Soccer was fine, a little too much running for my taste, but overall good. I think I quit because I didn’t fully understand the rules. Let me give you an example. I can’t even remember the position I was on, center, maybe (I’m not even sure what that really is). I saw the ball on the field and it was wide open so I went for it. I gave it my best kick to another teammate, but everyone just stood there and stared at me. I didn’t know that the only reason the ball was wide open was because they were lining it up for kick off. Needless to say, that sport ended after the season.

I tried softball next, and every time I got near the batters box I would stand as far away as possible. I didn’t want to risk being hit by the softball, God forbid. After my mom started noticing that I wasn’t being put into the game, she automatically went and yelled at the coach. She didn’t know that I told him I was too scared to play. So, softball’s done.

Hello swimming. This ones not too interesting so I’ll keep it short. Every time the gun went off to dive in at the beginning of a race, I basically did a canon ball to avoid getting water up my nose. That didn’t last very long.

And finally cheerleading was my last and final attempt. How they narrowed it down at auditions from 50 girls to 11 and me, still blows my mind. At this point in my life, I was one of the smallest on the team so they constantly wanted me to be a “flyer”, which is one of those girls they put up in the air. Long story short, I couldn’t get myself to trust twelve year-old girls with my life and limbs so I eventually had to leave that one.

Looking back on all my failed attempts, I wonder why I even wanted to play sports so much. I thought that I needed to be athletic just like most of the kids I knew and that ended up motivating me to try so many different things. But just because I wasn’t athletic didn’t mean that I couldn’t be great at something completely different. This lead me to journalism. In the end, I’m so happy I focused on something in high school that I actually enjoyed rather than keeping up with a sport that I was never interested in or good at.

Being athletic isn’t everything. So whatever makes you happy, go for it. I’m so glad I did.