In this photo, I was in the Spring semester of my senior year of high school. And up until a few months before this picture was taken, I never would've thought that I'd be playing any other sport competitively other than soccer.

Unfortunately, in July of 2022, I tore both my ACL and MCL in a meaningless summer training session with my club team. To say I was devasted is an understatement. I had been putting in hours of work into improving myself to make my last year of high school soccer the year we won state. Just for the doctor to tell me that my extra work is likely to be what caused my injury due to overuse and lack of rest.

I was very depressed for a few months following my injury as it meant I would miss out on the last opportunity I had to play my favorite sport with the people I had been playing it with for my entire life up until that point. I also couldn't drive for a while and with the amount of medication I was on I couldn't go to school and I ended up missing an entire month of class. But then my friend suggested that I try and focus on something else and try to do something productive so I could keep my mind off of soccer and put my focus somewhere else, and suggested that I join the golf team as there was no competition to make the team and the sport isn't very physically demanding.

I gave it a shot and it was a very welcome change of pace. I had to get a few lessons and play quite a bit to catch up with the others on the team, fortunately, I wasn't very far behind. We ended up qualifying for the area tournament so the season lasted longer than just a few weeks! Though we didn't qualify for state we still had a good time and enjoyed the day we had off school. All in all, I had a blast and gained a life skill while making the most of what I had. More importantly, I was able to overcome adversity and make myself a more well-rounded person from the experience.