Struggling to find something that you like to do can be hard sometimes. Throughout middle school, it was something that I was struggling with as well as trying to find new friends. This has been a vigorous problem for me during my middle school years. It didn’t seem like my friendships were growing closer and finding people with similar interests seemed impossible. Sure, I liked playing games and other people did too, but games don’t start relationships. I was really out of luck until the start of 8th grade, where during recess there was a group of 8th graders playing volleyball. I had my fair share of sports, playing lots of basketball throughout elementary school but shortly quit because I got quite a burnout. While watching them hit the ball back and forth across the net with smiles on their faces, I knew that I had to check it out. This was the first time I ever even heard of volleyball, but I knew what the main objective was and got along with the sport well.

Before even realizing it, every break and lunch I would get to the blacktop as fast as possible to start playing volleyball with these people. It just seemed like everything clicked and I met all these amazing people who I would call my friends to this day. We loved playing with each other and through the school year, we got better and closer to each other. Every year, there’s a volleyball tournament that goes on between the Middle Schools around the area. This was a chance where I could get some game experience and grow a deeper bond with my volleyball mates. I tried out and made the team along with my other volleyball friends! This would lead to us winning the volleyball tournament and beating all of the other schools.

When high school started, I was determined to play volleyball seriously to improve and become a good player. During tryouts, I met the other freshman who played volleyball that I saw from other middle schools. Since we all played volleyball and had a passion for it, I became friends with them by just talking about things related to it. If I didn’t know the things we had in common before trying to talk to them, I don’t think I would be able to become friends with them because I wouldn’t know what to talk about. This led to me learning more about the upperclassmen and forming a volleyball friend group which I still hang out with to this day. With the volleyball team, most of the freshmen I was friends with made frosh-soft with me as well and we had an amazing season going undefeated to the end. This was an amazing achievement in my freshman year with my team and we had a fantastic time. This shows how trying out new things can help you find your new favorite hobby which can lead to curing all of your problems. Now in my Sophomore year with the volleyball season coming up in a couple of months, I will be sure to work hard for my team to bring back more trophies!