Oh, wonderful, another day being outside in the sun in first grade, everyone playing games, and me waiting to be hit with a ball. What? Yes, you read that right. I am a liked person, but not a person who is like everyone else. I am one of the last ones picked for teams and usually never tagged. Yep, I’m one of those people.

So, there I was standing in the middle of a storm of running children and a ball being thrown back and forth waiting for the ball to hit me. I wiggled back and forth like I was at least trying.

We have ball hoggers, and hold on to the ball waiting to hit someone. What seemed like decades, they threw the ball right at me and it hit me in the side of my face, causing me to stumble backwards and making me fall on my back-side. “MY turn, finally!” I said with huge enjoyment. “Hey, sorry.” The ball thrower said to me, “I meant to hit the kid behind you.” And there they went, running from me when I grabbed the ball. At first I felt equal, then had my spirit crushed by being told I got in the way. I stood up and picked up the ball. I looked around and saw them looking at me and I heard them whispering things like “She’s not gonna hit anyone.” “She’ll fail on her first step.” “She won’t win, she never does.” And that moment made me feel something I never felt before.

I threw that ball like I was a canon, and down to the ground my target fell. Everyone else run away from him, since he was tagged. I stood there wondering, “He is alive?” and I walked up to him and asked if he was ok. “You’re it!” and he had the ball touching my foot. He got up and just when I was going to throw the ball again, “Who wants to play kickball?” and I stood there watching them pick their teams. I ran over there before they started. Three were left, including me, but I was the last one. I stood there astonished, while they forgot I was even there and they started to play without me.

I sat on a nearby bench and watched them enjoy themselves. Almost like every other recess. The whistle blew, they teacher called us in, and I was the last one. We lined up in front of the elementary doors to go back inside. Everyone had butted me so they could be with their friends. We walked inside and before I walked inside I had one last look of the playground and thought, “Maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow.”