Gender Expression Through my Life

I would like to reflect on a time when I was little and in my family there is only boys and just always being able to have a major baseball game in one of our backyards. Every summer my mom and 3 brothers would go to our cousins pool in Peoria, Illinois and would always start with lunch and swimming, but by the time we would get to around 3 thats when we would set up a whiffle baseball game with the 10 of us we would play teams of 5. Our ages were varied from 16-6 years old around this time and it was just always a lot of fun. My cousin and I are the same age and always wanted to stick close no matter what, but once we got to high school we both knew I couldn't do baseball so he picked up football, but was injured the whole season. The games would always take hours to finish because of how competitive we would be against each other, sometimes their were tears, most of the time there were. Even though baseball never really caught into my skill set and no one on my side of the family, due to being more of football family, but my other side was super talented at it. It defiantly made me learn between winning and losing and not taking everything so harshly. I always was a dramatic kid and didn't like to lose or not play, but we played that till the time I was 13 and right around then I did not care the result of a athletic game, unless I did not do my job or if we didn't play as a team. 

I think that this just impacted me even bigger than winning and losing, but maturing on a team and knowing how to act around more of an adult on the field, because my older brothers and cousins always trying to look down on us. I know that running around all that time always kept me wanting to play a sport with my friends more and more, and always made me work harder at baseball. It kept me playing sports all throughout the year because if I didn't play baseball I would be just training for football or traveling around playing basketball. I gave up a lot playing baseball when i was young but I did it all to stay close with my friends and cousins, since it was the only sport that my cousin played with me. I really loved to work on stuff around my house when I was young and when ever there was a worker over I would bother him and always try to help, I think that this is a masculine thing because its like following their dad around all day, but my dad worked a lot and still does so I would try to do the next thing and try to be like him.