The Week of Secrets to A Better Life

This past week was the week of But We Lost It.  And I spent a lot of time processing the loss of a certain soccer coach in Seattle. It hit me very hard, and very deep to have Laura Harvey go to Salt Lake. It felt like a betrayal.

But we are entering The Week of  Secrets to A Better Life, and today I found one. For me. This week I played two indoor soccer games, one with the women's team on Monday, and tonight I played my first game with my over 30 coed team.  Something about having a second game this week made me feel something and realize something that just one game a week didn't completely, and that is that sports, me playing a sport, training in a sport, working intensely to improve in a sport is one of the things that is my oxygen in life.

As we were leaving the game, my friends husband and I were talking, and I was talking a lot about how excited I was at some small improvements I made, and how excited I was to improve more. He said, well, we're just here to have fun. And I said that getting better is what makes it fun for me.

I don't have to win. And I don't need my team to be perfect, but I love training for something, I love having rituals and routines. I love practicing a skill  over and over again. I love that moment when you break through the frustration and master some skill.

I missed spending hours at a cold ice rink practicing the same jump or footwork skill over and over again until I got it. Last Saturday I felt that same joy in the back yard shooting at a goal over and over again. Getting a correction to my technique and then struggling all over again to be anywhere near the net, and then suddenly finding my way with the improved technique and hitting the back of the net. Tonight during the soccer game I nutmeged  a defender, and it was so exciting I started playing better just for having done that small thing right.

I also love those moments of speed, or springiness. I remeber when I skated  I always loved two things, going really fast and jumping and feeling my legs spring my body into the air. With soccer I get that same amazing feeling when I break out in a sprint, and do all sorts of foot work and turns to keep pace with an opposing player that has the ball, or to get past an opposing player and get the ball to a teammate or take a shot on goal.

I love it when my body and mind are in harmony, and my instincts just kick in, and I just know where to be to get a ball back, or to pass a ball to a teamate. When I just sense what I should do, and do it without thinking about it.

I think sports is my meditation, and not just any sports but the sports that engage these things.  Running never really connected for me. Especially running of any distance. It just feels like a chore I dread. But then you put me on a field or a court and you put a ball and people and quick bursts  of speed with intention, followed by slow moments of thoughtfulness, and connection, the players, the ball.

Put me in an ice rink, with the music, and the skaters, jumping, and coordinating with eachother to share the ice in their individual pursuits.

For me there is a magic, a spirituality. There is something to this that makes me feel connected to the world, to humanity, to the deepest pieces of myself. Something that makes me feel whole, and complete, inspired and empowered, in a way that nothing else ever does.

I lost that for a long time. When I couldn't skate any more, I felt so lost. I couldn't figure out what to do. I tried so many things, and I found things I could do, and it helped, but it didn't make me feel whole. And then a month or so I just decided to make time for this, to take a chance on a thing I had never done before, with people I didn't know. I was scared, because it was new.  But I felt it was going to be so good for me to do it. And it was.

I'm the same weird, intense sports kid I've always been. I can be competitive, but I don't think it's ever been about that for me. I don't know that winning really matters so much for me. What matters is that I walk around in this mindset. Imagine I'm someone great, like Michael Phelps. My headphones in or my play list playing in my car on the way to the place, or during warm ups at the place. I have to do this, I have to walk around all week when I'm not there, just conscious of what I'm eating , and how I'm moving, and what I should do to recover, and what I should do to prepare.

It gives me a sense of direction, and a sense of purpose that nothing else can or does.

I think this is why I have never been able to miss the Olympics. Two weeks every two years, it renews me, to watch. It inspires me, it gives me the fuel and the vision to do my weird sports preparations. And all my trivial little sports playing and all my intense pretending I'm someone great in my beer leauge soccer, it gives me fuel for life, to dream and challenge myself in the other aspects of it.

I know not everyone is like this. I know some of my friends just want to show up and kick a ball around. And some want to stay as far away from the ball as possible and just stay home.  But me, I need this, and I think sometimes I forgot how much I needed it, and I forgot how to find it when I lost it.  And tonight driving home from the soccer complex, I just felt so greatful, and so connected to something deeply spiritual and integral to me, that I couldn't wait to get home, and run up to my friends and tell them I loved them, because I felt that thing that makes me mandi, and makes me able to connect.

Any way, this is long, and rambley, and I'm not sure it makes any sense to anyone else at all, but I had to try to put it in words. The thing. Because it's my secret to a better life. It's how I thrive. And it's pure magic, and oxegyn to my soul.