Change

People always used to ask me how I can make such radical changes so quickly and so often, and I used to always say that I just like to change things up. That I get bored of routines. But that's not true. I actually genuinely like routines. I like things I can count on. I think I like to make changes that coincide with defining moments in my life. When I was 18, I finally decided where I wanted to go to college, which was huge for me. So then I got my first tattoo. Sort of a commemoration of my first "grown up" decision. And what better way to prove you're legal than to do something only legal adults can do: get a tattoo.

Shortly after moving to college, I cut off all my hair. It's sort of my way of interpreting how that change affected my internally. New city, new friends, new confidence to be who I am. New person.

Before I got my first ankle surgery, I got a pet bunny that I snuck into the dorms on campus. I was scared- scared that I would get cut from the soccer team if I couldn't recover quick enough, scared at my rapidly increasing number of surgeries at such a young age, and scared that I'd never be able to play soccer like I once did. Getting a bunny not only took my mind off of worrying all the time, but it also helped me open my heart to another living being in my life, and gave me something to focus on while recovering from surgery.

It was my first real week of practice back from ankle surgery. I hadn't ran or touched a ball in months. So naturally, my coach decided that I had to pass a fitness test before I could practice with the team. A fitness test that people train all summer to pass, and I had just gotten cleared only weeks prior. I passed that fitness test, and that was SUCH a defining moment for me. I proved to my coach and, more importantly, to myself, that not only was I physically tough, but I was mentally tough. You can throw whatever obstacles you want my way but when I am focused on achieving a goal, you bet your ass I'll do everything in my power get where I want to be. Not an hour later, I was in the chair at the salon with a buzzer to my scalp, bringing about haircut number two.

And finally, when I got my MRI results back on my ankle and had to meet with my coach. We both decided there was no way I could play at a collegiate level with a bum ankle, and there was no way I could simultaneously heal while remaining an active member of our team. And that was when I got my first "real" tattoo. And by real I mean my first piece of art on my body. My most recent tattoo symbolizes that you can make it on your own. It symbolizes the fight I still have left in me, and that I haven't given up. It reminds me that even when all odds are against you, you can prove those odds wrong.

So maybe it's a bad habit, to constantly have to make changes when something in your life changes who you are. But for me, the changes remind me everyday who I used to be, who I am, and who I want to become. And that, I wouldn't trade for the world.