Okay, the title is misleading. I am not really saying “So long” as in “Good bye, Soccer.” I mean, it’s been SO LONG since I’ve been able to play! Just another shut down thanks to COVID, as soccer is a contact team sport. Before March 13, 2020, I played soccer three times a week. On Wednesdays I played an indoor co-ed game. On Fridays, a women’s pick-up game, one that had been going on since 1988 when I first touched the ball as a player and not as a soccer mom. On Sundays I would carpool with two teammates to Orange County, the only women’s recreational league which had an over 60s division, to play as Ocean Motion against such teams as Still Kicking and Vintage. We wore team jerseys and paid refs and kept stats. It was the thrill of every weekend, whether we won or lost. I would come home, sweaty and spent, ready for a hot shower and a blissed-out evening. What is clear, now that I no longer have this “outlet” (which some might call an addiction), is how much joy playing soccer brought me over the past 30+ years and how much I miss it. My husband loves hiking and has continued to do it during COVID. While happy for him, I am also jealous that he gets to experience his “joy” while I cannot. Now that it has been SO LONG without it, I have decided at least to WRITE about soccer, and perhaps in that way, to connect to all the joy that it has brought and will bring me in the future. COVID will not last forever and I WILL play again! In the meantime, I shall start this new blog, specifically about the thoughts and feelings and stories of this WOMAN IN CLEATS!
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