Thanksgiving Break started with a soccer tournament. Your team played really well even in the wind and rain. You ended up playing 4 games that weekend and y'all even made it to the Championship! Although you lost that final game, we were so proud of you and your team for earning a 2nd place medal in a really tough tournament!
I'm so glad that your dad snapped this picture after that game as it might have been your last.?.?.
Despite what the date says up there, I'm actually typing this on January 11th and the update is this...Since then, you've told us repeatedly that you don't want to play on a soccer team anymore. At first, we thought you just needed a break since you'd played sports continuously since February. So we let you sit out of Winter Soccer and hoped that you'd miss it enough to want to go back. During your time off, you've kept playing soccer in the backyard, have watched soccer on television as often as we'd let you, and even planned a soccer-themed birthday party. But it's now time to register for Spring Soccer and you're still claiming that you're uninterested. We might be ok with this -- if you could actually explain why you feel this way. But you can't. The best you can muster is that you just like playing alone and that you don't want to play against opponents (Yet you want us to sign you up for another season of baseball.?.?.). Your dad and I have our own theories. First of all, you're no longer the best on your team. You've been the best on your soccer team ever since you started playing and this past season was the first time that a few players were better than you. We were so glad that you had some teammates to learn from but it seems like maybe you were intimidated as opposed to grateful. Another thing is your coach's style. He has very high expectations and he sometimes relays them through yelling. Again, we welcomed this change as we saw you learning so much from him. I think this was such a drastic difference from coaches of the past that you struggled to adapt to it.
And to think that you might not get back out there - that has rocked our world, bud. While I know this sounds insignificant in the grand scheme of things, it's currently consuming our thoughts and discussions. We know you and your capabilities. We know how much you love the sport. We know that when your coach says, "Our team needs your skills, Jax!" that he means it. If we thought that you really were over it, we wouldn't question your choice in the slightest (Remember your 1 season of basketball? We let that go without a fight.). Instead, we struggle about how to handle this. On one hand, we want to honor your feelings and never force you to do things that you don't want to do. On the other hand, we think we could help you overcome your anxieties and that playing on this team is good for you.
Here lies the cliffhanger...
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