What are you playing? What’s your position? How many points did you score? Do you start? In the area where I grew up, we were told from a young age that sports are what matter. They're the thing that will keep you busy when you’re bored in your childhood summers on the torn up streets in town. They’re the reason you get together with other kids your age and how you make friends.

They’re what sparks the flame of competitiveness that for the rest of your life you will try extinguish because losing means that if you’re not the best, then you must be the worst. And even when your days of sports finally come to an end- whether it be in elementary school, high school, college, or even beyond that- the competitiveness always rules your life in everything else you do.

In this kind of world it’s so hard to ever just be yourself and know when your absolute best is actually good enough because you’re never comparing yourself to you, you’re always comparing yourself to every single person who’s right above you.

When I was younger, like elementary school age, a lot of things really did not matter. I played sports because that was the normal thing your parents knew how to get you into, and it was a way for them to finally see what their kid was going to be. I remember at a practice for one of the earliest basketball leagues I participated in, I looked around and immediately started to compare myself to others that surrounded me.

Some of the kids were obvious naturals, while others not so much. I always felt like I was somewhere in the middle of these two groups. I had the potential to be great but it was like that switch in me was always holding back from flipping. I could visualize what I wanted to do before I did it, but whenever I tried to put my thoughts into action, whether it be on a court or a field, my body always tensed up and I choked.

It’s like I was stuck and I grew up thinking that I was a failure do to this inaction of my abilities. Another thing I specifically remember from that one practice was this one girl in my grade. We were all so young and inexperienced but everyone could tell that she had no athletic ability whatsoever.

Instead of making fun of her or pitying her like everyone else, I thought for a brief second that she was lucky, to have tried something she knew she wasn’t going to be good at and then had the power to escape from it at such a young age. That same girl never showed up for the next practice or any after that, and probably never stepped onto a court to play a game ever again.

Let me set the record straight now so people don’t think I’m someone who I’m not. I was never the person who thought that I deserved things that I didn’t. I knew a lot of times the reason I didn’t go into games is because I didn’t put in as much effort as everyone else.

To tell you the truth, I have always been a relatively anxious person, so a lot of times I wouldn’t even want to go into a game if I knew I couldn’t contribute. I was still stuck on the same elementary school ideals that sports were supposed to be fun, even when I entered high school. I remember one of the first days of a varsity sports practice, we ran so much that every time I tried to breathe it most literally felt like I was swallowing a brick.

My whole body was in agonizing pain, and at one point, the senior to my right put her hand on my shoulder and said, “I know it hurts but you just gotta keep going.” And that’s what I did for most of my high school career- I kept going even when I didn’t have the strength to anymore, because I finally realized I didn’t want to be the girl who sat the bench, the girl who would never make her mark in high school, the girl that no one cared about.

I don’t mean to sound dramatic but most of the things I’m about to say were absolutely true to how I felt at the time. I remember sometimes during mid season of a sport I would wake up in the middle of the night not able to sleep because I was so worried about what we were going to do the next day at practice and how much pain I was going to be in afterwards.

I would intentionally make myself sick or miss school just so I didn’t have to go to practice. I was so physically and mentally exhausted that sometimes I would mention something that happened previously to my friends and they would have no idea what I was talking about. It was only later that I realized the thing I said that happened didn’t really happen at all, but it was something I dreamt about in the times where I could actually fall asleep.

I started to try to find anything to make me happy throughout the day so I could stop thinking about all the hell that was to come in the afternoon. One day during my freshman year, I remember hearing announcements and seeing sign up sheets for the spring musical- Legally Blonde.

I was so busy with everything else going on that I forgot about something that I was so passionate about- singing. I signed my name up for a time slot and got the audition material as soon as I possibly could. For the first time in awhile I got excited about the future and had some kind of happiness to occupy me for the present.

Then the self torment once again set in. I memorized the monologue and practiced the song relentlessly for days upon end, but I kept getting so anxious and telling myself you’re not good enough, you’re a fool for even trying.

I had been conditioned from a young age from playing sports to think I was going to be a failure at absolutely everything I did because I didn’t score enough points at that one game or I only played for 5 minutes total at another. I hated myself a lot for those reasons but this is something I couldn’t back out of, I at least had to try. So I went to my audition, performed my shaky monologue, sang my shaky song, and then waited just like everyone else for the cast list to be posted.

I tried not to go in with high expectations on the day the list finally was posted but it was really the only thing I could think about. As I approached the list, I saw some really happy looking people who obviously got the part they wanted, along with a lot of others who looked disappointed. When the crowd of people finally parted, I made my way up to the list and started from the bottom where the ensemble section was posted and I didn’t see my name.

I honestly thought that they totally forgot about me and my audition, but then our choreographer walked up right next to me and pointed at my name which was near the top of the list. I couldn’t freaking believe it, I started to shake uncontrollably, but the kind of shake you get when you need to call your mom and tell her that something good finally happened to you.

I was in such a state of euphoria that I was able to block everything else out that was going on around me and just be happy for the time being. When I snapped back to reality, our choreographer said “You did that. You should be so proud of yourself and you absolutely deserve it. We all were blown away by your audition.”

And that day, one of the best days of my life, is what happiness was supposed to feel like, a feeling that I still spend a lot of time trying to chase after. It was a feeling that gave me back a sense of worth and told me that I didn’t have to do anything that didn’t have the potential of making me feel that way.

I didn’t act on the way I truly felt until my junior year of high school. In the middle of my sophomore year is when I thought I had finally reached my breaking point. I had auditioned for the musical once again because I started to realize it was what I truly loved and it was the only thing that kept me sane while doing sports.

My world was absolutely crushed into a million pieces when I didn’t get the part I wanted that year because it had gone to a senior. The whole experience had brought me back to the way I felt when I started to put a lot of dedication and effort into sports and I still sat the bench. Doing the musical the year before gave me so much confidence that I didn’t even know I had and brought me so much happiness that when it didn’t work out for me this time, I felt absolutely worthless.

The ideals from sports that I had been brainwashed from a young age to believe are what tore me down once again, and I couldn’t take on all of that pain anymore. But a part of me didn’t want to give up on either sports or the musicals so that summer I practiced really hard in both things and showed up to absolutely everything I could at the gym to make up for all of the time that I lost while wallowing in my own self pity.

All the work I put in that summer at the gym simply equated to wasted time. I remember hearing the last buzzer blare for the last game at camp and I hadn’t gone in at all, I wasn’t even pulled up to the bench for that team. My stomach absolutely sunk and I felt completely empty.

I did one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life and quit that sport my junior year because I had done everything I possibly could to get better, and it still wasn’t good enough. Instead of feeling extremely sad like I thought I would, for the first time ever I felt lucky to be free, free from the oppression that sports brought upon me for so long.

It felt good to realize that I could finally be just happy while doing the musicals rather than a mixture of happy and sad while doing the musicals and sports at the same time. I directed all of my energy into auditions and rehearsals and not one bit of the experience ever made me anxious or hate myself.

It was one of the most constructive experiences of my life and I learned more about myself along the way. Every single moment I spent on the stage in my high school productions made me feel the way every single person should feel when they’re doing something they truly love. Now that I’m in college I realize now how much I truly miss it. I can always try out for musicals here, but I know it wouldn’t be the same.

It’s like a left a major part of me on that stage for good and I’m always trying to get that part of me back. Sports matter to a lot of people- they really meant alot to me at a certain point in my life too- but the arts are what truly saved me. They gave me so much confidence in myself and dragged me out of one of the darkest parts in my life, even when I thought there was no escape.

Let me set the stage for you one last time. It’s closing night of your last high school show ever and you just finished the last and final scene. They’re doing curtain calls and this year it’s finally your turn to make the last appearance. You wait behind the curtains until it’s your time to go out not thinking about absolutely anything besides the way you feel in that moment at that time after you know you’ve done it all.

It’s your turn to go out so you hike up your gown and enter the stage. The lights are so blindingly bright and the roar from the people in the sold out show is so completely overwhelming that you think if your heart bursts in that moment it would be absolutely fine. But you’re brought back to reality by the faces of the people on the stage who have been through it all with you and you feel so lucky to have had them by your side.

Then you look into the crowd and you see your family and friends there supporting you like they always said they would. You focus in on your father’s face who is the one who taught you how to dribble, shoot, throw, and pass the ball, but in this moment he’s so proud to have a child who has done something incredible.

Then your mother, who’s tears you’ve seen a lot in life, but only good ones for you this time. She isn’t just living vicariously through you anymore, she’s now feeling her own version of happiness and it’s all because of you. It’s all over in a blink of an eye, but the feeling never ever fades no matter how long it’s been.

This is why the arts matter too.