I casually sat back in my chair and told my advisor at school that I was going to hate the next four months of my high school career because of a large rectangular box.

I’d already been through a new sport in the fall and experienced the endless opportunities of my new high school: I had the chance of solving pollution problems on campus, becoming a college-level athlete, and reaching a national competition for history. But I’d never picked up a squash racquet, even though most of my friends had. Never stepped within one hundred feet of a squash court. Didn’t even know if a ball is involved. This was because I’d officially deemed myself physically weak like a dangling tree twig and became heavily disinterested in any more athletics due to the grueling cross country season. So while the winter inched closer, friends eagerly signed up for squash and encouraged me to do the same. I said to myself, Who cares? More of the same. A waste of time. Doesn’t help with anything. I’d only chosen squash because a friend told me that practice was forty-five minutes each day, shorter than all other sports. My arm was tugged toward the court I vowed I would never step foot into while others practiced before the season, as if it was a holy site. A varsity-level player even told me the squash court would be a place of quick growth and development. I thought of the physical side.

“I’m just looking forward to the spring, when I’ll know what I want to do. Why do I have to go into this weird squash court? I’ve never played squash before. Never will again. Who even named it squash? After a vegetable.” I confessed to my advisor in the fall.

My team got together for the first practice the next week. I reluctantly entered the squash court for the first time, and my teeth quickly jittered and vibrated in fear of embarrassment, like a plucked guitar string. I knew most of my teammates, but barely and mostly from the school day. They were the people you always notice in the hallways but never greet because you don’t even know their names, so my head drooped like a shriveled flower and refused to connect with them. A plump man provided the dull demonstration of rules, and he seemed to know everything: how to hold and swing a racquet and even the history of squash. But I didn’t pay much attention and later squeezed into a court with three others with no idea of what I was doing. Immediately, the petiteness and narrowness of the court, miniature as a baby carrot, pestered me unlike the endless vastness of the outdoors. The blood-red lines overflowing the outer edge of the court screeched and howled, constraining me within the mere walls. Even the glass door creaked and slammed shut like the unyielding door of a dilapidated prison cell, trapping me inside for years without end. 

I’d never seen people who were so much better than me at something new to all of us. I don’t even know how. I hit balls that struck too low on the front wall’s tin section and discordantly rattled and hissed, sending furious hollers in the opposite direction to caution me. Meanwhile, my teammates’ shots banged in strategic areas on the front wall like juicy balloons popping. Even during short running drills when I nearly fell on my face, sweat gushed out of my body like a crashing waterfall, exploding on the splotched ground like a fallen egg and leaving behind a steaming pool of scattered saltwater. Dense clouds and heavy fog from my evaporating sweat flooded my goggles, hindering my already unfocused and wandering eyes. My tongue dried and withered into a rocky desert while my parched taste buds wrinkled together like ignored plants on a scorching summer afternoon, begging for water. After only an hour, my head was imploding. I was right. I couldn’t take it anymore. Especially the prison-like feeling. I exited the court with relief and freedom and carelessly flung my racquet on the ground. Followed by my goggles and the ball I was holding. I didn’t know how to survive the coming months. There was no way I was stepping foot in a squash court again. 

But I decided to give squash another chance, so I returned the next Monday during a challenge match with a teammate. With the same attitude but a willingness to try and a hope to redeem myself. I was wrestling with this attitude but just needed something to alter it. Anything. 

On only the first point, my opponent’s unreachable corner shot caused the miniature charcoal ball to die like a deflated basketball upon contact with the ground, reminding me of the true vastness of the court. Despite moving clumsily toward the ball like frigid and numb fingers in the winter, my legs dove after a distant ball and slid along the court as the ball implored me to keep it in play. While my opponent and I traded points, my smile widened on winning shots but subsided on losing ones. But balls that pierced through the air in a nearly invisible cloud of black created a harmonious whistle new to my ears. Other shots peacefully crawled through the air, merely kissing the front wall. In a best-of-five match, my opponent won the first and third games, while I won the second and fourth. In the thrilling last game, I again noticed the bright red lines that now reminded me of painting in art class and encouraged creativity with every shot. My dripping sweat now represented the serenity of raindrops, cooling my body and locking my mind within the moment. I even began to applaud my opponent’s winning shots and laugh at shots I could have hit better, while the presence of onlooking spectators comforted me with roars of praise. My opponent led ten to nine in a game to eleven, but in a thrilling last point, he hit a shot that soared high above the court and beyond my reach, staring down like a predatory bald eagle. I’d lost. I was frustrated and embarrassed. Hands on my hips and breathing heavily, I exited the court. Everyone fell silent, remembering my previous tantrum. But I calmly placed my racquet in my case. One by one, some teammates smiled, but most didn’t seem to understand. 

Even after practice had ended, I reached for my racquet and eagerly asked teammates, “Want to keep playing?”

“If only the winter season could last forever,” I would later reveal to my advisor, with a guilty smile. I’d lost that day, but I really hadn’t.