I quit baseball at 17 and it took me 20 years to forgive myself

I had three D1 offers on the table senior year. I was the kid in the local paper. My dad worked overtime for ten years to pay for travel ball. Three weeks before signing day, I told everyone I was burned out. I wasn't. I was terrified. I had been the best player in every room my whole life, and the next room was going to be full of guys as good as me or better. I couldn't face the possibility that the thing I was built on — being the guy — wasn't actually true. My dad didn't talk to me for almost a year. My coaches stopped returning calls. I moved away from the town because everywhere I went, someone asked. I spent my twenties drinking too much and pretending I didn't care. My thirties chasing money in jobs I hated, because at least money was a number that proved something. I'm forty-two now. I coach my son's Little League. Last summer one of his teammates — twelve years old — told me he was scared he wasn't good enough for the next level. I told him my whole story. I cried in front of a twelve-year-old. He hugged me. He's still playing. The thing you're afraid of finding out about yourself — find out. The not knowing will cost you twenty years. The knowing only costs you one bad day.