Sorry

My biggest goal is to make my parents proud but having everything thrown at me at once was and is still hard.

With academics, sports and growing up all in one it starts to feel overwhelming. My story is similar to many as we struggle with “having to maintain” when sometimes we truly just want to give up. But im here to say finish the race.

In my 2022-2023 sophomore year I had many challenges that I had to overcome, specifically the pressure of school in general including my sport’s and academics. During XC I had a leg injury which was bad but i tried to push through it to no prevail. I had nights where I just laid in my bed thinking about how i might never be able to run again. I had times where I woke up and thought of quitting forever. Seeing my teammates compete, win, and have a good time while I was there just existinging. Though after some tough times I got better and eventually was all good and I got to run at districts (Under someone elses name) which was a risk but a risk we were going to take. I felt like my flare was back and during the winter time I had kept training awaiting my Track season. During Track tryouts/preseason I felt there was a bunch of favoritism and lowkey didn’t like anybody there, which resulted in me not doing track that season. First with my injury then with me not doing track I had taken a step back from running in general but not fully which was not the worse idea due to not being so burnt out especially coming back from an injury and for my acedemics. But It was bad because I lost that motivation and training, so when my Jr year started I was way behind where I should’ve been with training and competing. To make matters worse my coach had told us we wouldn’t be returning to lehigh as he had a better opportunity somewhere else. Part of me was confused on why we would just leave us like that but the other half of me was ok and understanding because if i was him and in his shoes i would’ve done the same thing. When looking at why he left it made everyone kinda understand why he left as the opportunity he got was to teach and coach at another school (Gulf coast HS) which was closer to where he lived and had better accommodations for teachers as lehigh isn’t the best especially the students and staff. But as they say once a coach always a coach and he still talks and helps us (or atleast me).

Now Being the age of 17, the responsibility of Adulthood starts to really knock on the door and no matter how long you try to keep it closed, it will eventually open up. The “what do you want to be when you grow up” question has been said to us since we were in elementary school and now that it is literally in less than a year it makes you start to overthink. Challenges never go away and sometimes they come back even harder but easy time never made hard people and Im here to tell you that even through all the challenges and difficulties, it will be worth it.The perfect time is already set for you, all you have to do now is believe and stay patient because your path is already being paved.