from the mom who isn't competitive....or is she

 Preface:  Often, I write as a way to care for my own sense of mental health and well-being.  Before I wrote on a blog I wrote in a journal ....but that often seemed pointless because I wrote to.....noone.  I am an infinitely relational person and it seemed so fruitless to write to myself.  I almost never re-read my own journals.  Usually I threw them away without ever looking back on them twice.....I wonder what beautiful thoughts I missed in reflection.  Conversely, I love re-reading blogs I have written.  I love it enough to read them over and over again because the words have power and purpose.....the words have not changed but the perspective has.  I now write when the Lord stirs me to.  I now write to someone.   The down side of blog writing vs. journaling is that it is public and therefore puts me and my life and my family in an incredibly vulnerable position.  I am acutely aware of this.  I have been since the first blog I ever posted.  I am not opposed to a transparent kind of life until someone decides to get finicky or critical.....then I get a bit prickly....and because words are my thing....then my words can become, well...more like weapons.  It's such a weird thing.....and such a long preface.  sorry.  Here we go.  Diving in the deep end once again.....

I am not a competitive person.  I don't ever really care who wins or loses at most things.....and I did high school volleyball but our team was terrible and we didn't win enough for it to even matter.  I hate the anxiety of winning enough to try to maintain the win....and the anger and conflict and angst that goes with the battle to try to win....I hate the bad sportsmanship.  I hate the nature of whoever is more powerful stepping on the weaker one to rise higher and get to the top.....it goes against everything in me.  But.  I have children.  Some of my children like competitive and athletic sports and for whatever reason, I find myself among the moms who yell really loud from the bleachers....I stand up.  I get mad.   I hold grudges even.  I. Am. Not. Proud. Of. This.  I'm working through it. 

My precious twelve-year-old daughter is an athlete.  Oh my word, is she ever.  I wish more than I can even find words to explain, that I could call her birth mother and ask her about what her bio family is like...what sports they excelled at, what they loved.  Precious can do anything.  She is only 12 but she is fast.  She is powerful.  Her potential makes me breathless sometimes.  I feel ill-equipped because I'm old enough to be her grandma, and not sporty and not competitive....she worked really hard from last year to this year to improve as a volleyball player because right now that is her favorite sport.  We did all the camps, and she put in extra time on her own.  She decided she didn't want to do dance any more, she wanted to focus on team sports....we listened to her, we paid attention, we watched her and we are team Precious.  Try-out day came.  She was up early with her bag packed and ready, a big smile on her face, ready to tackle the challenge.  We told her, no matter which team you get on, just have fun, enjoy playing the game you love and be a good sport hunny.  (but in the heart of hearts of this mom and dad we were saying, oh just this once, can things go in her favor and can what she wants go her way?)

The email came today with the teams listed and it didn't go the way she would have been thrilled with.  Because this is my blog and I can delete any comments that make me mad I can say....I was so, so mad.  For her.  She worked hard.  She worked......hard.  I don't care for me.  It doesn't reflect my parenting AT ALL.  AT ALL.  Trust me, but for dammit's sake just once in awhile can't something go right for her? and....my sweet, mild, never-get- mad-about-anything-husband was probably more worked up than I was (just for the record).  I had a couple of hours to remind myself how much I hate competitive sports and how much it doesn't matter before she would come home from school and want to see the list.  Moments before she got off the bus I got a text from a friend asking how I was and how my family was.  Because she is a Christian friend I told her my momentary angst and while I understood that in the big picture of life this didn't matter, in the moments of the heart of my 12 year old child this was a big deal..and she said she would pray for Precious' heart and for wisdom for me.  

Precious and Josiah got off the bus moments later and I was at the kitchen table working.  She came in, and said, "well....is there a team list?"  it had literally been on her mind all day.  I said, yes and I printed it.  It's here.  She took the list and went to the bathroom.  I had no idea how she would respond.  I didn't know if she would be mad or sad or content or indifferent.  She is a very difficult child to understand or anticipate.  She has always been a masterpiece of mystery.  I was bracing myself for the worst.  She came out and I had her sit down and asked her what she thought and we talked.  Genuinely, she was happy for girls that had moved up a level, and genuinely she was grateful to be where she was.  I confessed to her that I was mad that she was at the level she stayed from last year and didn't move up because I thought she put in the work to move up but I also gave the reasons I thought made sense to be where she was,  and I said this: 

Precious.  You are an athlete.  You have a future with sports and sometimes things will go in your favor and sometimes they will not.  Sometimes you will come out the winner and sometimes you won't get a medal....you are 12 years old.  You are like a little bird in an egg getting ready to hatch.  You are all hunched over in that egg and you are getting ready to break out of that shell...and when you do....everyone will see it.  So what should they see?  What does God want them to see?  What kind of athlete should you be?  Will you be grateful and humble?  Will you be a team player?  Will you be unselfish?  You get to decide when you burst out of that shell.  Lets make a plan for you to be a great athlete that comes out of that shell.....

She bounced out of the emails of  teams really well....maybe because she is 12.  I'm crawling out because I'm 53 and have lived a lot of life....but we are both ending today really grateful for so many things.  She is grateful she gets to play volleyball.  She is happy she has something to do for the next 10 Saturdays because that is AAU tournament schedule.  I am grateful that I get to be her mom.  I am grateful that I get to watch her play volleyball for the next 10 Saturdays...and maybe sign her up for some really expensive club camps outside of NW Iowa because sometimes the fierce and salty mamas need to meet people from other places....or not?  just wondering....