LETTER TO YOUNGER SELF

Dear Sophomore Year Beckett,

Remember when you had an amazing football spring camp your sophomore year of high school. You were killing it out on the football field, looking like you could play division one football at that moment. But that will all change in just a month Beckett.

One month goes by, you are in the weight room with coach p every morning at 7 am. Working your tail off to be in the best position you can be going into fall practices. At least you think your going to be in the best position you can be going into your junior year… SNAP out of the blew your ACL and meniscus while playing in a 7v7 football game.

Your first thought is what just happened, the only thing going through your mind is if you’re going to be able to play in the most important season of your high school career. While having these thoughts you are being carted off the field with your dad right by your side. You can tell your dad is devastated but he tries to keep your head up and not think about all the bad that is about to come your way.

You are taken to the doctors’ office the next day to get your knee checked out. The Dr. comes in and preforms some tests on your knee to see what is going on. The Dr. immediately has a worried look on his face after preforming the first test. He looks at you and says unfortunately you have completely torn your ACL and by looking at the MRI of your knee as well you completely tore your meniscus as well.

At this point after hearing that news you had nothing in your head, you felt numb and scared. The very first thing after he told you these things is, will I be able to play football this year. His answer was the last thing you had ever wanted to hear. He told you that you will need surgery and be out for around 6-9 months! You started to tear up and mom held you and said we will be ok Beckett.

You wait for about 3 weeks after that doctor’s appointment to get surgery to open your knee and repair your injury. The surgery felt like it went by fast but, you had a long way to go. The next 3 months you had to be on crutches everywhere you went, to go to the bathroom, to go to school, to drive, and everything in your daily life had to consist of you hobbling on some crutches for the next 3-4 months.

Your recovery was very hard, going to physical therapy every other morning at 6am, you had to go to the gym with crutches on and only do upper body, it was so rough, but you learned so many things from this experience. You learned how to keep yourself accountable no matter the task, you learned how to take on a challenge head on and finish it no matter the cost, and this experience made you strong mentally and physically.

The biggest thing you learned was becoming mentally strong. This process was so long and exhausting that you became drained and had so many doubts about what you’re going to do with your life, just give up or keep pushing through. You told yourself that you won’t give up no matter what you must go through. The biggest lesson you gained from this is how hard life can be but if you keep your head down and grind, you can become better than you were before you got that surgery.