My Defining Moment Essay

With every step, my heart pounded faster, the tears inched ever closer, the internal clock ticked even louder, and the air around me grew harder to breathe. The sand in the hourglass was trickling down, coming closer and closer to burying me. Step by step, the pressure builds, until it’s like the weight of the world. And that weight will either be lifted from me, or crush me.
Just don’t think, I tell myself. But it’s not possible. I’m thinking about letting my team down. And what just happened, my teammate’s shot thudding into the goal post, bouncing away, then rolling, it’s energy slowly decreasing, unlike my stress. Don’t think. Too late.
I take my place on the line, my line. It’s become a part of me, something I must protect. So I now look

Her kicks are so powerful, it would be easy for her to just shoot it hard down the middle, and knock me back into the goal. My only hope is that she kicks it too hard, over the goal.
Again with the thinking. I’ve just wandered off onto a dark path of could be’s and what if’s, and it’s definitely not boosting my self confidence. But I can’t help but make it hard on myself.
I put so much pressure on myself, to take the responsibility, to lead my team.
But I’m not big. I get told I’m short every day. Yet I’m playing goalie for PK’s in a semifinal game. I volunteered for this. And now I’m going to be the girl who let her whole team

She’s let her team down. That would’ve been me. But it’s not.
Every muscle, bone, and organ in my body seems to all breath out at once, releasing my body from the grip of the tension that filled me. I hear cheering. We’ve survived, lived to see another round of shots.
Then I hear something else. The ref, calling the shooter back, then talking with her. I’m straining to hear. He hadn’t blown his whistle, she shouldn’t have kicked yet. The crowd has stopped cheering, they’re now gasping, shouting, wondering what’s happening. I raise my arms into the sky, silently screaming, outwardly shouting at the ref. Shaking my head, I drop my arms, my joy of success dissolving as I hear what I’d feared he’d say.
Re-kick.
The girl silently takes the ball, and sets up her second shot, not showing her emotion. I am fuming.
This time, I don’t think much, or feel the butterflies, just annoyance. Bubbling, frothing over the edges of whatever inside me is containing this frustration. And then, the whistle blows, and my body tenses all over again.
It happened so quickly, yet so slowly, it’s hard to describe. Somewhere in those few seconds, the girl misstepped, because the ball slowly rolled straight down the middle, right to