Sneakers squeaked along freshly waxed flooring, masking the sound of my loudly beating heart. Fear overwhelmed my stomach, trying to force my breakfast out in its nervous fit, and it took all my focus to keep from making a mess of the clean gym. Other high school students danced along the court in their brightly colored uniforms, tossing and spiking the ball with looks of total confidence.
It was beyond intimidating. I was fighting an army of giants, armed with the weapons of strength and intelligence, with nothing but my bare hands.
I wiped my sweaty hands on my jersey as I followed my team. We had mere minutes before our match began and I would be faced with the greatest challenge of my volleyball career: climbing the mountain that was the other teams to reach the peak.
The tanned hands of a referee reached for a volleyball before holding it out to my teammate. Trembling, he took the ball with a polite nod. We were all nervous and unable to hide it now that we were on the court. The crowd produced a cacophony of shouts that only fueled our worry. They were all cheering for our adversaries.
The ball arced above me in a beautiful serve, only to be returned. My mind focused completely on our fight for the first point.
I almost didn’t even notice when the ball flew past me; my body was frozen in fear. However, that only brought me to the realization of what I was really afraid of: the ball whizzing past at full speed and landing inside the boundaries, just as it had then. I felt a rush of emotion. Could I lose this for my team? Could I mess up our first match in the tournament?
Just as my heart started to feel like it would fly up through my throat, I felt a warm touch on my shoulder. My teammate stood there, giving me a reassuring smile rather than looking at me with the disappointment I expected. He gave my shoulder a light squeeze.
“No worries. It’s only the first point, right?” he asked, “Any of us would have made that mistake.”
The honesty in his voice rang out and cleared my worried thoughts. Any of us? I looked around the court at the others, dressed in jerseys matching my own, and the truth finally dawned on me.
I was not fighting the army of giants with my bare hands.
I was fighting the army of giants with a team behind me, empowering me and bringing me to my full potential. It didn’t matter how strong the other team was. We could knock them down and I was sure of it, though I don’t know what gave me that sudden confidence.
I could hear the chants of our friends behind us in the crowd. I heard my team’s mumbles of encouragement as we shuffled back into place on the court. Everything else was drowned out as we readied ourselves to score the next point, then twenty-four more after it.
We could fight off this army. We could reach the peak of this mountain of enemies and return back with our trophy.
We could win as long as we were together.