When I was in 2nd grade I started playing fast pitch softball. I got to start a year early because our town was so small and there weren’t enough girls to make up a whole team. I was an only-child, shy, reserved. But softball gave me a push to own a certain amount of confidence. Stepping into the batters box on a game day with at least 20 or more people watching is scary. You’re all alone in that space and though you may be too frightened to take a swing, to frightened to do anything but watch the ball wiz by, you still had to have the initiative and strength to step in front of everyone and at least attempt to try.
And though now it’s easy for me to have issues with sports because of the parallelisms sports have to the military (patriarchical institutions) I do have to say that they are not completely evil. I made friends, I started talking. I gained confidence in myself, and I didn’t get fat. I still have that competitive edge, I love to win and, okay, it’s true, I hate to lose, I mean pouty-face tantrum hate, but at least sports gave me the will-power to exert effort into being successful in whatever I do, even if what I am doing is deconstructing the power dynamics within and outside those very games.
But, in the end all that fear, all that energy, anxiety, and hope that swims through ones brain upon entering the batters box makes the hit all the more joyous; the connection is what we’re all going for, the moment when everything falls into place and our confidence sails over the fence.
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