Personal Narrative-Changing Experience

I stepped onto the ice and shivered. I was very anxious and couldn’t believe I was being thrown into the game halfway through. My teammate, Claire, had just tripped over a curling stone and landed on her knees, causing her to pull out of the game. So here I was, subbing in for her. I was so nervous that my hands were shaking. I didn’t feel confident at all; I didn’t know what the ice was like and I hadn’t warmed up. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down - it was my turn to throw my shots. I knew whenever I was nervous I rushed myself, so I consciously took my time and made sure to not throw the stone too heavy. Of course, I over compensated and the rock ended up short. I kicked myself; it was a simple shot, I could make it easily. I took another deep breath and tried to bring my heartrate down to a normal rate. Once again I took my time, but instead of focusing on
I started to dread walking off the ice with our heads down, ashamed of our attitude and skill. But then I realized that we didn’t need to walk off the ice gloomily, we could finish out our game having fun and making the most of it. So, in order to improve our mindset, I started to joke with my teammates. I made light of our situation and we all started to relax. I joked about how jumpy the other team was when they swept and how their hair bounced all over the place. We all started to have a good time and started to make our shots! Although we didn’t get any points on the board, we came close. By the time we ended the game, we were all laughing with tears in our eyes and walked off the ice with our heads held high. We congratulated ourselves on our 10 to 0 loss and teased each other that we should play poorly more often. Later that day when we had our last game, we were upbeat and ready to take on anything that was thrown at us and ended up losing only 6 to 5 against one of the top