I knew the moment the NWSL schedule dropped that June 3rd was going to be my day. It would be the most Mandi day I could ever Mandi. I knew all the things I wanted for this day, but first I had to get brave enough to ask for them. And for the first time in my life, I was, and I did.
June 3, 2018 6:30 AM
The white noise of a radio alarm not set to a station filled my ears and pulled me from an anxious slumber, while a steady drum beat and the strumming of a guitar played in my head.
"A year from now we'll all be gone. All our friends will move away. And they're going to better places, but our friends will be gone away. Nothing is as it has been and I miss your face like hell. and I guess it's just as well, but I miss your face like hell. oooh oooh oooh.
Been talkin bout the way things change, and my family lives in a different state. and if you don't know what to make of this, then we will not relate.
Rivers and roads, rivers and roads, rivers till I reach you. Rivers and roads, rivers and roads oh rivers till I reach you."
My brain had picked the perfect song, by the Head and the Heart of course, to start my day off with a reflective mix of happy and melancholy tears.
Before I go any further with this story, I need to give you some background, and I'm not going to give a lot of details here. It will take up too much space that there just isn't room for. So TL;DR Last year, and during the season and off season some things happened with the Reign that I have very strong feelings about, and they aren't necessarily happy. However, as someone who has volunteered with the club for three years now, this place is my community, its my home, its my family. So I have been doing what I need to do to process those emotions honestly, and in a way that will allow me to forgive and move forward with that home and community. I do not believe in blind loyalty or going against what my heart says is right, for anyone. I did that in my past, and I will never do it again.
Part of what I did to work through those feelings was take a chance, make an investment, if you will. In February when the pain of the off season was really fresh, an opportunity was presented to "Ride with the Reign" I wrote about that in a different blog post. With my attending that event I got tickets for a pitch side table at the game of my choice, which I planned to and did used for the Orlando game. I spent a significant amount of time with two of the soccer players on the team which has been and interesting part of this story, and probably vital to it. They are excellent humans, and have changed my perspective and my confidence levels on a few things. And I got a pair of JLab Audio headphones from one of the soccer players (JLab Audio is her sponsor.)
I will also add one more piece of back story here, and that is that the coordinator for the volunteers usually doesn't let people volunteer if they can't commit to the whole time commitment (around 6 hrs. right up to kick off, sometimes beyond a little.) However, over the past year we have built up a trust and a friendship, and when I told her I had a table for this game, but really really still wanted to volunteer, and might need to leave a little early, she let me still volunteer. I asked for that back in March when the schedule dropped and was shocked that it was granted. And that was the moment that I decided this day was going to be epic. I took a chance and asked for what I wanted, needed really, to have the best day ever, and we started with a yes. So this day has had months of build up, but just that little thing, I knew it would be amazing.
Now back to our story...
Before I got out of bed, because I like to wake up very slowly, I decided to get out my Align with Joy Journal and set my intentions for the day. Any time I am going to have a big day I bust out that journal, because it helps me figure out what I truly want and get the mindset to approach it with intention, gratitude, and acceptance for however it may go down. In fact, that ride with the Reign day was one of the first times I used it and it was also an epic day.
Now, I may have had a touch of revenge and anger mixed in just a little bit with my motives as I went to set my intentions for the day. Each day has a quote at the top, and an affirmation at the bottom to help set the mood. So when I read the quote of the day "Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world."- Wayne Dyer. And the affirmation "I spread love everywhere I go. I attract love every day. I am a magnet for love" It instantly made me re-think my intentions. I thought, I have asked something for today of the universe. Something that is huge, and that is about justice, and forgiveness, and that is about doing right by someone that deserves to have a big day (not me) and if I approach this day with a spirit of revenge and anger, and not love then its not going to happen. It took 30 seconds ish for all the negative to drop away, and my focus to return to that of a loving world view.
I had to do one more thing before I could set my intentions for the day. I had to think about and acknowledge what I learned from Mel Robins book "Stop Saying You're Fine" I had to face the jerk, and the chicken in my brain. The ones that are afraid to be vulnerable, afraid to dream, afraid to ask for what I truly want. The one that always tells me I shouldn't want what I want, that my hopes, and dreams, passions and desires are stupid and will never happen. I had to catch my self a few times saying "If this doesn't happen, its fine. I don't need everything." And I had to answer it with "This is what I want. I am not going to be afraid to want this, I'm not going to be afraid to go for this. If it doesn't happen it will hurt. But it also may be even better than I dreamed." And I had to go to my phone. To the lock screen saver and read the words of my friend Michelle that I have been reading over and over again any time I needed to find that same courage.
Michelle died a few? couple? (time is weird and I'm not sure any more.) years ago very suddenly and unexpectedly. She was a year older than me and one of my best friends. Maybe a month or so ago her father shared a Facebook status she had posted a few years before she died. This is what it says, and what I use to remind me. What I used on this day to remind me to just go for it. To just have the most Mandi day I ever Mandi'ed.
"I was just thinking today... we tend to want to say, don't hope for that, because it will hurt all the more when it doesn't happen! but you know what? If we live that way, we are then affecting our own actions when it comes to the things we desire... we don't try as hard. our attitude changes our behaviors... so what if in the end it doesn't work out like I planned, or even hoped for? most the time it's even better.. and in the meantime, I spent my life enjoying and hoping rather than dreading and expecting the worst." - Michelle Bullock
As Mel Robins said in that book, basically, you won't get out of bed and stop hitting the snooze button for anything less than what you truly desire. And so I wrote my intentions. I wrote what I was grateful for, how I would take care of myself, how I would cultivate joy, and actions I would take and my own personal mantra's I would live by.
My actions: "Don't over plan. Be in the moment. Accept what opportunities come to you. Don't cry over the ones you want that don't happen today. Not everything needs to happen today. Somethings will happen today but probably not exactly as you expect. It's OK to want things."
My Affirmations: "Be a Brynion!" (the volunteer coordinator is Brynn, and I coined this portmanteau for us her volunteers (Brynn's minions). Brynn has high high expectations for what we do and accomplish. Being a Brynion means you put your whole heart into it, you put your whole body into it, and you bring the magic to Memorial stadium on game day. Its really hard work.)
"Tackle that tarp!" (This refers to one of the physically most challenging aspects of our day, putting out the very heavy sponsor tarp over a section of bleachers. It also means metaphorically to do hard things.) And finally "You Badass Mother!" ( this is a Cool Runnings reference. "I see pride, I see power, I see a badass mother, who don't take no crap off of no one." This quote makes me brave.)
With that done, I felt I was in a place of peace and preparation and I was ready to get dressed and start my day. It was 7 am, and I needed to leave by 8:15. I will be really honest, I showered, I did my hair. I followed what I have jokingly named "The Krieger rule." A rule named for soccer player Ali Krieger because its a Women's soccer community joke almost that she is really attached to wearing mascara. The Krieger rule means I don't leave the house without mascara ever. I found it gives me more confidence. I also very intentionally chose my outfit, right down to the color of my underwear. Not to be superstitious, but to be intentional. To put every ounce of intention I could into this day, and this game. Then I grabbed my bag, with everything I needed for the entire day, kissed my dog on the head and said goodbye.
I got in my car and I hit play on my phone. And I played Rivers and Roads. And I thought about those off season trades. That's why those words were perfect, because today three of those trades were back in town and I had a drive and a ferry and a walk... rivers and roads until I reached them, and this day. The lyrics could not have been more fitting. I missed seeing their faces around the stadium like hell. Especially, and I know you will all be deeply shocked by this... Haley Kopmeyer. I appreciate her greatly as a soccer player, probably even more greatly as a human. And what did I want exactly for this day? What I felt Kop deserved. A clean sheet, a save of the week, and a really super day starting in goal once again in Memorial Stadium. And then I got really brave. Because I already had a pitch side table, and the opportunity to volunteer, and I was already asking the universe for quite a lot. It was scary to openly want and ask for some kind of interaction with Kop.
Because when I am honest, that's what I miss the most about having her around Memorial Stadium. She would get there early, and we would be in the middle of lifting some stupid heavy thing up the stairs and she would wave and say hi. Or I'd be down in the fan zone making sure my friends kid got all the autographs, standing three people back and she'd give me a fist bump. She's good at connecting with people and making them smile. Its nice to have people like that. We still have that on the team... Bev Yanez that I did the Ride thing with is like that too. But it always really meant a lot and made all the hard work I was doing volunteering more fun and less of a chore. Like I said... we work REALLY hard on game days. So I finally dared and just admitted to my self that I really wanted that, and let myself hope, and risked being crushed.
Once on the ferry at 8:45 AM I ran upstairs to the galley and got the best breakfast I could. I knew I was going to need to fuel my body well for what Brynn would have in store for us. There weren't a lot of options, but I grabbed a cold brew (because I love my coffee cold) a bagel and an egg. I was really really excited when I found out they had a toaster for the bagel. I am a recovering germaphobe, so communal toasters make me cringe. But I braved it, and I did not die. The toaster ended up not working on my side- it had four slots. I figured this out when the lady next to me's bagel finished toasting and mine was still cold. So I took her side when she was done, and we had a good laugh about it.
At this point, I've set my intentions for the day, and I'm staying 100% in the moment already. I'm done looking ahead and hoping. I already put that out there, now we just focus on one thing- Connection. to the world around us, and to other humans. Including the other bagel lady. I went outside and I was going to sit in the sunshine on the deck and eat my food and enjoy the scenery, but it was freezing cold. so I went to the sheltered part of the deck out of the wind, and I decided that if this was going to be the most Mandi day I ever Mandi'ed it would be truly epic and I needed to capture every moment. So the instagramming of my breakfast began.
When I finished my meal we were nearly to Seattle, So I put in the headphones Bev Yanez had given me, and decided since that was the day that started the journey to this day we'd better take a picture and acknowledge that and thank her for it, so we hit Instagram again. I listened to the Head and the Heart one more time, and as the boat pulled into the dock I switched to my indoor soccer play list. And Macklemore started to sing Excavate.
"Fill my lungs up, pour my heart out, peel my bones away. Grab my window, shut my shutters, excavate my pain. If I could read the world my notebook and these thoughts in it, would they judge me or love me for what I've written? Tryna get closer to spirit that enters the body. It's the vessel like I'm not in it. In 50 something years, I won't be here. There'll be a kid with some headphones covering his ears. Walking 'round a hallway, dreaming of ideas. Finding himself in the sounds 'cause music is a mirror. What you looking for? What you headed towards? What's your name worth when they mention yours? When you leave here are you stepping forward? Can you remember your intention when they question yours? they're gonna question yours, they're gonna question yours. I've been at rock bottom and I'm headed north. If you don't love yourself, what's the respect for? If you don't love life the check won't correct yours. Excavate."
9:45 AM- Seattle, WA
Slowly I zombie marched my disembark of the ferry, and hit solid ground. It was time to get to work. Time to hit the ground running. Literally.
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