By: Xavier Moimoi
Dear seven-year-old Xavier,
You are going to leave something behind you never thought you would leave behind.
You are also going to join a sport you had never thought you would find love in.
You are going to be ten years old running around with teammates and other cousins throwing a weirdly, shaped ball around.
Although having fun in this one sport everyone calls rugby. You will still be involved in football, which is the sport you have played your whole life. But you would start to develop a love for rugby.
Fast forward two years later, you will be twelve years old and still involved with both sports. You would still take football seriously and would start to travel around America playing against other teams. But you would also start to take rugby seriously and start to develop more love for the sport.
You would start to have thoughts about pursuing rugby and leaving football behind. Then you would mention those thoughts to your parents, and they would just laugh and push it to the side.
In your head, you would say, “They will accept your decision one day.”
Now you are fifteen years old, and everything has changed. This is your first year in high school and everything has gone sideways due to a global disease called COVID-19.
You do not play rugby anymore because your parents wanted you to focus on school and football. But doubtful thoughts will start to flow through about football.
After football season you try out for the basketball team, but you end up not making the team. After the tryouts, you call your parents to let them know how it went and you let them know you want to return to rugby.
At first Mom and Dad are hesitant to let you play. But you already made up your mind about going back to rugby and playing with the family again. Mom and Dad end up letting you play not knowing it would impact how you feel about football.
The same words go through your head again, “they will accept your decision one day.”
Now you are eighteen years old and only play rugby. You do not know how you got here but you are still happy you got here.
It was a rocky road at first as your parents would not be the only ones who took you quitting football as a dumb decision to make.
You have gone through arguments with other family members like your grandfather and your uncles. But you decided to focus on rugby and stuck by it every day. Even if it meant being the only one who had a vision for the rugby path.
But after all the hardship, everyone in the family would eventually come around.
You will still go to the same school, and everyone will still be making comments about your decision.
Classmates would say, “Only if you were still on the field with us.”
“That should’ve been you making that block on that play.”
All of this would then end and no more comments about football would be made towards you.
Those words you kept hearing in your head would turn into, “They have now accepted your decision.”
After all the struggle you went through to play rugby, you are now one of the captains of the team and have grown a lot when it comes to the game.
Comments