freedom will sometimes taste like forgiveness. it may not always be sweet, but it should be savored. – Alex Elle

My soccer friends used to say I was “insane” to stand in front of the net like that.

My goalkeeper buddies agreed. We would joke that we were a special breed: Aliens who weren’t afraid to dive in front of flying balls. To face human stampedes charging at us at top speed. And feet. There were many kicks to the head at the end of a breakaway save.

We didn’t mind hitting the grass, mud, turf — sometimes rock, snow, or sand — to stand up only to fall once again. We’d sometimes talk after practice about the turf burns radiating from our thighs and the excruciating (and yet delicious) feeling of letting them singe under the shower. We’d talk about holding the fate of our team in the palms of our foamy hands. How it took composure to handle all of the excitement. How it required stoicism to process all the heartbreak.

People who didn’t understand us thought we must’ve been “nuts” to want a job like that.

Actually, it wasn’t that I wanted it. Not initially, anyway. I was more so enamored by one self-affirming thought: Someone needed me to do what no one else could do.

When I was 10 years old, I was a gangly child who towered over her teammates. Me: a Black kid among white girls with Rec Specs and a gap-tooth smile that wasn’t yet in style. I was trying to find my place.

One practice, my coach looked down at me with his gentle, watery green eyes and said,

“Adele, you play basketball, right?”

I thought maybe my skin color gave off a false impression because, “No, Coach,” I didn’t. Nor did I truly understand the question until he put me in goal and tossed a few balls at me. I was as “good with my hands” as he’d assumed (you know, from all my years in basketball), but my technique needed work. He taught me to catch like a goalkeeper. Thumbs touching. Hands shaped like a “w.” A week later, I learned how to dive and that’s pretty much all I needed to know for U-10 soccer.

I don’t remember my first game or any of the saves I made, but I remember walking away from that summer as if I had suddenly donned a cape. I discovered that I could soar — that it was fun to be the one to turn the drama of a match on its head. I had the power to give relief. My team counted on me to save the game and soon the “keeper” role just stuck.

But part of my heart wanted to sprint down the field and score goals like everyone else.

One match, I crouched on the ground to pick the flowers. I danced around and occasionally paused to see if anyone was watching: No one, apparently, except our assistant coach, who pulled me aside after the game and yelled at me to be more respectful.

I guessed that time I wasn’t acting the part of the hero.

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By the time I was playing college soccer, I was convinced that I had developed a sixth sense.

When I was on, I could feel the ebb and flow of the game within my body. Before the ball left a striker’s foot, I knew exactly where it was going and where I had to be. A silent voice would guide me. Dive right. My body would react to shots all on its own. Hit the floor! Sometimes when I had to tip a ball over the crossbar I’d leave my body altogether. I’d be up in the air, ears closed off to the world, back to the ground. All I could see was the sky and the ball floating among the clouds. I couldn’t even feel the impact of the fall.

Part of the reason people play sports is to be a part of something greater. A team. A championship trophy. A legacy. I wanted that, too. But I knew that any time I was playing out of my mind, I was plugged into this electrifying presence that telegraphed all that I needed to know: Joy.

It had me in a sweat.

While I was learning how to attune myself more and more to this connection, a much louder voice began to fight for space. Fear. Doubt. Worry. Judgment. This voice sounded a lot like some my club coaches from high school.

If I fumbled the ball: Adele, that’s not good enough.

If I let in a sloppy goal: What a nightmare, Adele.

If I shanked a goal kick: Adele! Unbelievable!

You deserve to be benched for that.

For a long time, I thought this was the voice that was helping me to get better. I was an athlete striving for perfection (or at least the women’s national team) and my coaches were trying to hold me to a higher standard. When I was a teenager, I didn’t receive this sort of feedback very well. Ask my parents: They’ve seen me cry many snotty tears after games and practices. But I learned how to cope. I had convinced myself that the harsher my coach was, the more he saw my potential. At 17, I had a coach that I absolutely adored. In many ways he was an asshole; he wasn’t afraid to swear at me.

But God, was I playing some of the best soccer of my life.

Somewhere along the line, I started to identify with that voice. It got louder and louder on and off the pitch.

If I got a bad grade in school or if I received rough feedback in a writing workshop, I struggled to ditch my inner critic.

That’s not good enough became I’m not good enough.

Adele that was a shitty draft became I am a shitty writer.

Well, that sounded stupid became I’m not smart enough.

I don’t deserve to be here.

My thoughts about how well I performed and how “badly” I failed became so linked with my self-worth that at times I would fly… and at times I was too frozen to play, speak, or write.

I remember the day when that voice stole my breath away.

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Almost a year after I graduated from college, I traveled to Sydney, Australia, for Christmas vacation.

I decided to visit one of my teachers who taught me during my grade school Montessori days: Ms. Zac. She had stayed close to my family ever since I was 5 years old.

Staying with Ms. Zac and her husband, Bryan, was like living in the Jungle Book. At the time, I was still training to play professional soccer, and every morning I’d wake up to the music of lorikeets before I went out for my morning run. After my training, Ms. Zac and Bryan would take me on an adventure. We kayaked in the ocean to watch the dolphins, we drove buggies into the dunes to go sand-boarding. I even fed a kangaroo.

One day, Ms. Zac and I were driving north to hike the legendary Blue Mountains. I was sitting in the back of the car with the window cracked open. The air was humid and pregnant with the smell of wet grass and warm asphalt.

It was all too familiar.

It was the same smell from those long summer drives with my dad, going to my high school soccer tournaments. Suddenly, I went back to that feeling — that feeling of my heart dropping out of my chest. The voice came back.

Adele, you can’t let your team down.

You better not mess this up.

What if I do?

In the back of Ms. Zac’s car, my stomach squirmed as the balmy wind snatched the air right out of my lungs. Breathless, I couldn’t believe I was having a panic attack over something that wasn’t real. Ms. Zac hadn’t had a clue what was going on.

I let the feelings pass.

But I was so rattled by that moment that I really had to question why I was training to be a professional soccer player. I no longer felt the joy of competing. My motivation for playing at that point had become so clouded by other people’s desires and expectations — by that dark voice — that I had this deep-seated fear of disappointing people, of no longer being that hero. I was putting so much pressure on myself to show my friends and family that I had made it that I had forgotten the enjoyable innocence of the game itself. 

Then the subtle, loving words that I used to feel on the pitch said this:

“Adele, it’s OK to rest.” 

I decided right then to hang up the gloves for a while.

To retire the cape and unveil my true self.

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It’s been five years since I’ve played goalkeeper in a competitive soccer match. I recently starting playing pick-up with a group called Dyke Soccer. It’s good-old, no-pressure fun, and the best part of it is: I get to play striker this time.

For a while, I hated telling people that I ever played in net because most of the time, they would try to recruit me to play on their co-ed soccer team. And no one ever wants to play keeper in the local beer league — not even me. I wanted to leave that past-self behind (and save myself from potential kicks to the face).

But something strange has happened in the past few months. I’ve got a sudden urge to glide again — to float through all the planes of the matrix. Sometimes I daydream about gathering my friends at the park just so they could shoot balls at me, which could easily become a reality. But I only have one glove in my apartment. Guess this means I get to take a trip to Dick’s.

Maybe I’m feeling this way because the 2019 Women’s World Cup is kicking off in France, and for the first time in my life, I got tickets to go see the finals. It’s an understatement to say I’m excited about soccer right now.

But I know this feeling is about so much more than that.

My time away from soccer (and competitive sports) has given me space to feed the inner voice that lifts me up. I found meditation and I am learning to enjoy the peace of being instead of doing. I now recognize that I am not my thoughts. That I can observe my fears and let them pass. That I am not my mistakes. I am worthy of love not because of my accomplishments or because of anything that I’ve done or undone. I am worthy just because I am. I am. I am.

I am learning.

I am expanding.

I am exploring.

These are the affirmations I repeat as I recognize the truth about myself. My sole purpose is to play in this life — be it on the soccer field or elsewhere. No matter how many mistakes I make, I can’t get life wrong. I just get another opportunity to grow wiser, more aware of my values, and what really makes me tick. And as I keep leaning into this new way of being, I find myself opening up more to my joy, my talents, and above all else: forgiveness.

So these words that you are reading, this is my release.

These words are dedicated to the young Black girl who believed she needed to be the savior of everyone else before herself; to the coaches who thought it was best to lift her up by tearing her down; to the angsty teen who was swept away by the shadows of her mind.

I thank you and I forgive you.

Because I’m now understanding what it really means to fly.

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