Step behind: Part 2

Whenever I talk about my experience with MetroLacrosse, I always seem to talk about the youth I work with. I talk about their potential and their hardships. I talk about how I have learned from them and with them in different capacities. I tell everyone about the influence that MetroLacrosse has on young people's lives because I have seen it, and I have lived it. But for some reason, living it is only a distant memory. I played with Metro from 2002, the second year it existed, to 2005, the year they helped me get into boarding school.

It came at the perfect time; when I needed that outlet of exploding, loving, and excelling at what I was doing. We were a brand new team: Chelsea Charge Silver. None of us had heard of lacrosse until they brought sticks to gym class that fall.

Sometimes, I would attack and other times fall away from that consuming feeling in my chest that I, years later, recognized as the panic attacks my mom always gets. It paused the words, drown out the screams, and gave me control over what beatings I was willing to take. Bring it. It was not the wolves from my dreams chasing me; I simply fought for each ball, each hit, each fall that I got right up from and continued on. Stuck in memories I cannot escape to this day, my only out was to play so I got lost in it.

Everyone always tells me that the only group they would never work with is middle schoolers. The attitude, no respect or concept of rules is not what they'd choose to get themselves into. I'm not sure if I even formed many memories of spring seasons. In a state where I was too weak from not eating, the experience itself was a blur. Only minor details and feelings have stayed with me.

It came naturally, my body flowing to the beat like my words when I'm rapping on the bus to and from games. I never sat in middle space, headed to the back to rap or the front searching for something to cut with. Dis fights over nothing, only ending in love.

“You ready J-No,” I'd taunt from the restraining line before the draw.

“Bring it!” She'd bang her stick against the poles of the net.

At first, the ball was my goal. Get the ball, take a shot. Everyone on the field was simply an obstacle until I could learn to find faith in others.

I could fight and take my stance in the midst of teammates becoming opponents. I learned to work with everyone as I went from spring season to summer camps. Every goal became a victory because whether it was our team who scored or we got scored on, we saw each other grow and improve. We pushed each other farther.

“No!!!”

I remember inching closer to the goal. Open shot. Just me and her.

“No! Vic!”

I shot at Jen's feet as she jumped into the air. Score.

“You scared of me?” I'd run over and tap her helmet before heading back to the restraining line. “You got this shit. Get ready. I'm comin for you again.”

We left together. The three of us headed to boarding school two hours away, but Adriana and I came back every summer. I can still hear her laugh; the sarcastic little snicker that interrupts your conversations and the motion of her eyebrows when she got serious.

Four years later, I sat among familiar faces. My generation, our mentors, and the youth we now coached. The cool wood and stone of the church set the tone as the slideshow played. I couldn't stay, siting and watching the pictures appear and fade with the people going up to the casket. We left, trying to find something to eat. “I saw her you know,” Sadiki said in the booth of a run down sub shop in Chelsea Square. “I called her an asshole, said see you later, and its done. That's all I need.” His words resonate in me.

I never realized it more than I did that night getting a slice of pizza with a boy that I hardly ever talked to before. We are a part of this, all of us, as AD was before Ortho Evra produced the blood clot that took her life. There was passion in every word she said and she brought it into every moment that she worked with those kids. She loved life. It emanated from her; her presence addictive whether it was positive that day, that moment, or she was pissed. She was never afraid, never backed down from a dis, never allowed anyone to lower her voice, her passion. She loved her team. This community, these people meant everything.