Today, one of my friends comes to Hanoi, our capital city, to see us. We were on a basketball team. Our initial plan for today was to play basketball all morning but the weather today is not really good for playing with the orange ball outdoor (we don’t have an indoor playground). So we decide to just have lunch and chit chat instead.

No.7 was the name of that basketball team. Our team started because some of my friends fall in love with the orange ball. I have to admit that I don’t have such great attention to basketball like them but I really like playing with them so I join their team. I used to play as SF (Small Forward). My team said that I had the fastest legs of the team and because of my ability to remain calm during the games, they voted me as a secondary captain in order to fit the captain position whenever the main captain could not calm down. As our captain went to study abroad, No.7 broke up. We reunited once two years after that when we were about to graduate from University. At that time, only five members remained.

Then life happens again. The one I mentioned at the beginning of this post came back to our hometown after graduation. And we split up again to start our new journey to adult life. Unlike most cities and districts of my country, in our seaside town, Hai Phong, decisions in life for us, the youth, are a little bit different. After graduation, we have to choose if we continue our life in Hanoi or Hai Phong. Persons from other cities often choose to stay in Hanoi because there are job opportunities, better life services. In Hai Phong, we also have these things with almost the same quality, sometimes better. So we have choices. But to us, that’s a tough choice. None of us know for sure if we want to stay with our friends or stay with our family. “You’re going to stay, aren’t you?” is a scary question at that time. And my friend choose to come back to our town while the rest of our team choose to stay.

Now we are chasing our own dreams. But every time we have a meetup, everything is still the same. Each member has a position to play. We steal the ball. We pass the ball. We throw the ball. Nobody knows where the ball would go. We blame each other. We curse and curse a lot but with a smile on our face like the way we deal with problems in life.