Time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sitting there in the school Gym at 3:25 watching my ten year old daughter prepare for her very first basketball game in her very first team sport experience, I felt the time slow to almost a complete halt.

There are those moments in life where everything feels like the movies in slow motion, and all you can hear is the sound of your own breath. Your heart thumps as if it has floated up and lodged itself directly in the center of your throat. You feel at any moment you will either wake up or black out and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you will remember. this. moment.

As soon as the game started the 5th graders began the dance of putting all of their hard practice into reality while complete strangers (all seeming like 7 foot tall 11 year olds by the way) pushed them and challenged them with an aggressive determination that most of these young catholic school girls had never seen up to this point. At least my child had not. You could see it on her face.

If adrenaline had a particular expression, she was wearing it.

My primal maternal instincts became my singular perception in that moment. I recognized the sensation as it has happened a few times since I have had the honor to become a mother. I love this analogy, but very truthfully, in the animal kingdom, you would not want to be between my children and myself when that sort of blood is pumping through my veins. Yet, I had to control myself in every way possible to keep my seat and hold my tongue in order to gain the social status of "competent functioning parent". When I watched my child’s face get smashed from the side by another players fist (everyone else including my own kid says she got hit with a basketball but all I saw was her face go sideways and then shock.) This particular societal norm flew right out of the boundaries in my head and way out into space where none of this bullshit seems to matter, and yet I managed to control myself, and fly straight. That is, with the aide of more experienced sports parents I avoided the instinct to stop the game by crawling over the seats to get to her.

Within moments she was not only recovered from her shock but back up and in the game, running up and down the courts with a bright red face and now boasting that same look of wild determination that was in the other girls eyes when we first started. She had gained so much. She was different, not much, but she was different. 

It was just a moment, so brief and so rich, so full of the pollen of growth and change. I don’t think my child will ever even remember it. Not in the way I will. These moments that change us have no ego. They are not written in lights across the sky. They are like spirits or nymphs running through the mist of our consciousness laughing and leaving gifts in secret places. I caught a glimpse. In my primal intuitive space of heightened awareness, linked to the only thing I have ever truly cared about I was able to see. So, what do I do with this information? 

The one thought that keeps coming back to me, is that to actually get back up and walk out onto that court was likely one of the most difficult things my daughter has ever done but she had to do it to be a member of the team. So she did it, she leapt and she grew. Just like that. All the moments that I can remember that felt similar to me personally were ones of great emotional strain or discomfort. When I was out of my comfort zone. Way out, like those times when you find yourself doing something that you did not actually sign up for but the circumstances put you there and you really had no way out. Those moments that you squirm out against because, there is no real way to differentiate counter intuition and fear. Those moments when you truly have no idea what the outcome will be because you have never been here before and you are afraid in some way you will let yourself down. Moments when you have no choice but to do the hard thing. Moments when you have no room to hesitate. Moments where for some reason beyond anything that you could have foreseen or control you find it impossible to be anything else but completely honest and authentic to a fault.

Argue all you want but real honesty is a rare thing. Most of the time, we don’t even realize how dishonest we are with ourselves until it is too late and our lives have changed forever. Still... even in those places the moments come to us. So many times looking back over my life I remember being in those situations and flailing hopelessly. So many times I remember gritting my teeth and powering through. Only a few times did I just let go and let the tide have me, closing my eyes and surrendering to the vast unknown and in those few moments, I gained the most insight. 

We all have our own paths in this life and we are all different and unique in our own ways but sometimes we understand each other and for that I will risk sounding like a fool. So friend, if you find yourself being present enough to recognize one of these moments, let go, and go for it.

Make it interesting.