3 rings

I found the first one on the sidewalk 6AM in winter morning dark.  The kind of dark that wraps around your body moving with you like deep water.  I was walking between the banks of shoveled snow up 33rd when I kicked it.  I heard the high pitch ting of cheap metal cartwheeling in the cold.  

I was thinking of a few hundred other things as I mindlessly bent down to grab it with my numb fingers. I was looking into the future reminding myself; This moment will soon be gone. In a blink of an eye the stinging cold, the doubt, the stress, the fear, the crowds, the noise, the demands, the sadness, the tiredness, they will all be gone almost as if they never existed. 

My mind writes it as a long and narrow hallway decorated hotel red with white doors numbered; day one, day two, day three.

A long hallway: Three 16 hour days on a bad foot with a hurting back- sure sounds long to me. Narrow: claustrophobic, surrounded, crowded, closed in, trapped, only one way to go and that is down it.  A hotel: away from home, on my own, you have only what you can carry, not enough coffee, alone in a crowd, stranded.  (Jung would be proud of my waking brain.)

Day One

Put only what you really will need in your bag: water bottle, chap stick, reading glasses. 

Get there on time: 6:20 AM. 

Try not to worry about the child you left behind still sleeping as you slipped out of a still, dark house: is she nervous? has she eaten? is she ready to compete? will her ride get her to the gym on time? 

Remember what you are good at: hostage negotiations and cruise directing. 

Try to stay hydrated enough not to get sick but so much that you have to pee because there won't be time for that sort of self indulgent shit.

Go home the first time it is offered, not the last or you won't make it.

Level 7 Regionals Long Beach, Ca

Day Two      

Arrive in the dark and leave in the dark.

Try not to worry about the child you brought with you- is she tired? has she eaten? is she having fun? is her back okay? how will she get home? and when she does, what then?

When literally there is a circle of people around you all asking you questions at the same time and the apex of the wave of people flooding in the doors is a woman who says, "I have to pay to see my daughter compete?" and the lady beside her says, "I have 3 adults and a 4, 7, 11, and 14 year old but my husband is parking the car, can I pay for him too?  Well wait, what age is considered an adult? So I have 5 adults, 1 is military, 2 seniors, and 3 kids but one is leaving early so do I have to pay for her? And can you do it on 2 separate cards?" as the man on the other side of her leans to hand you a $50 for a $1 bottle of water and a $.50 bag of chips and asks, "Where are your restrooms?"... remember to breathe.

And on that note when you feel like crying laugh instead.

Walk out of the building before 11PM. Leave in a pack of women who accept you as you are. Laugh and scurry together against the bitter cold. Ignore what you know, what you see, and enjoy the moment for what it is; a white crosswalk shining in winter under red and green traffic lights.    

Team traveling some airport somewhere in Ohio (?)

Day Three

Dig deep because everything is at the bottom of the bag now.

Accept help. 

Accept coffee.
Soak in the love of the people around you and your daughter.

Don't linger too long in how pathetic you feel standing in the kitchen seeing all the neatly packed boxed filled with the leftover catering with your coworkers' names on them and realize you have written your child's name instead of your own on the single plate of fruit and one can root beer you plan to take home.  

Use the kindnesses shown to you to get through all the way to the end.

And when you get to the end, and you are on your knees pulling trash out from under the bleachers...let all the garbage go.  Haul it off in white trash bags and throw it away.

Beach on beam at Lady Luck 2018

The other two rings were there at the end.  Found by the moms working beside me.  Picked up from the broken glass and sticky wrappers left on the floor.  One a costume diamond.  The other something floral looking, I was so tired I can't remember. They will be there on my desk on Monday morning when I come into work the first half of a double shift.   

There are 3 rings in a circus and 2 rings in a partnership.  In chemistry, a single ring symbolizes a simple cycle of atoms and bonds that form a molecule set in which every atom and bond is a member.

I found the first ring alone in the dark outside the gym. I thought it was kind of beautiful almost something I would buy for myself but Beach told me it was something common that >insert eye roll< everyone had.  I thought it was mountain.  She told me it was a wave. I suppose we mostly see what we choose to see. 

These moments will soon be gone. They will slip through our hands and fall away lost to time. But the simple beauty of the bonds formed along the way will always be where we can find them, when and where we need them the most.  

To all the Moms and Coworkers who helped to make sure I got to see Beach compete in the second session a HUGE thank you!  And to the Moms who literally went the extra mile to make sure that Beach wasn't left out of the groups going to the Ute's Meet and to friends' houses another HUGE thank you!! 

We are GTC <3 <3 <3