Love, Mom

As I get ready to send Beach off with her team this week to compete in Virginia I am looking for the magic words to send with her.

I have the To Do Lists.  I have the Numbers.  But what do you say to a 15-year-old as she leaves to compete without you?

Did you pack a good jacket?  It's going to be cold.  Remember your grips. Try not to wrinkle your comp leo too much. And for god sakes please wear your contacts at the airport- remember the time you didn't?!

We both know the drill.  The suitcase, the ziplock bag of travel size bottles, spending money, airport snacks, an envelope of notes from mom; one to be read before bed, one whenever, and one to be read before the Meet.

What hasn't already been said between us?

Dear Daughter,

A few weeks ago I looked out over the gym at you and your team on beam.  And I finally saw it, for the first time ever.  I saw and I believed. They are trained and they are capable of doing this.

The morning before your last meet I slipped into your hotel bed and lay beside you.  I wrapped my arms around you.  I whispered, I believe in you.  You are strong and you are well trained and you are so capable.  Capable of handling whatever comes your way today.

I am a mom.  I have been that way for a very long time.  I worry a lot.  Did you pack enough socks?  Did you remember to bring good supportive shoes?  Have you eaten well? Are you hydrated? Are you bored?

Dear Daughter, Good night, sleep well, I hope you are having fun in Virginia.

Dear Daughter, Hope you are having fun with your team. Don't forget to take a few photos for me.

Dear Daughter,  Turns out I am the harshest judge you have ever encountered.  I have watched you work hard for years.  I have seen the routines, the skills, the scores but only now do I truly believe in you.  I believe you will be okay without me.  I believe in your strength and your courage. I believe in your kindness and your leadership.  I believe in you.   

On the morning of your Meet you will open a letter from me and there will be nothing inside it because everything you need is already inside of you.

Dear Daughter, Call me when your plane lands and I will there to meet you on the other side. Love, Mom

now reading: Then She Was Gone

the travel part of a travel meet

the things not judged

Beauty lies in the things not judge.  

The moments we forget to see or at least we forget to remember. 

 Beach had an amazing meet but as I go back through the pics and videos I am finding the things the judges missed.  The values listed beyond the reach of the book of codes.

The victories scores and medals can't note. Like the distance between a hard vault warm up landing to...

landing the 1st place vault (9.5) in competition.

And the Not-Our-Coach cheering just as loud as our team for Beach.

Some of it does matter to the judges but not in the way it matters to me; like her power.

Clips of warm-ups that don't make the final edits

There are no extra points for being the one who competes on beam while the rest of team moves on to warm-up floor AND sticking your series after 2 straight meets of falling on it.

All the hours that came before and the ones after left unseen.

No bonus for coming back to the venue to support your mates when you are tired and sore.

Or having a 35 minute wait between your 3rd and 4th events.  Having it be the event you struggle the most on.  Final rotation after all the other teams are done and all the other girls, parents, and coaches are watching. 4th place bars 8.8 (level 9 personal best)

And they don't add points to your score for taking the hardest fall you have ever taken during your bar routine but still cheering on your team. 

There are so many beautiful moments here.  

Some you would expect and some you thought you would never see.

Teammates fighting their way back- all the way up to the top.

But the most beautiful of the beautiful came later when my daughter said to me, 

"That was a good meet, mom.  That was really fun..."

I wasn't sure I would hear those words again.

Woven into the things not judged were the smiles and the tears.

  

1st place floor 9.6

 1st place in the All Around 36.875 and first to fall asleep on the way home.

What a beautiful path she has chosen.

3rd place beam 8.950

chasing the sky

Now is not the time to be writing a new blog post.  From where I sit I can see the list of To Do's written in green ink on the whiteboard.  

Change sheets, clean out fridge (house sitter is Vegan), feed animals, take out trashes, sweep, mop, vacuum, make breakfast, pack with Beach to fly, pack car bag, pack BC, pack me, pay and mail bills, clean out car, make lunch, get eggs, feed turtles, prep dinner, pick up contacts, workout, shower, math, reading, laundry, clean bathrooms, walk the dog, work, gym, hand off Beach to her team, clean kitchen, set coffee pot, load and start dishwasher, set alarm for 3AM.

Yep. Tomorrow we drive 11+ hours and Beach will fly.  Her back is so bad this is where we are; buying one way plane tickets hoping it will give her some relief.  We need a huge head start to catch her.  Another 4AM of slipping off into the darkness and racing ourselves down I-15.

Her back is so bad right now her coaches are removing skills from her routines.  It will effect her start values and in a funny twist it could hurt OR improve her scores.  Gymnastics is part voodoo, part magic, the rest is a mix of physics, math, and pain.

We have done everything we can afford to do to help her.  The bad back is related to the injury she had last year in her hip/hamstring.  The time it took and the skills she avoided to heal the fracture left her so tight that her back is suffering.  Or she has a fracture in her back... only an MRI would be able to identify that.  However, we don't think it is.  She isn't in constant pain when not working out.  And her pain is worse after taking time off because she gets tighter.

She stretches, she rolls, she ices, she heats, she takes omega's, drinks smoothies, shoots black and sour cherry juice, takes supplements, and works on her core.

She is fifteen.  How insane this all seems.

But I don't have anymore time to think about it.

I already see Beach flying high through the blue while we drive along the black below her.  All of us chasing the sky in our own way.  

the day against the sky

It's hard to describe the dark.  Lying in bed eyes shut tight.  It is the weight of a day that is too like the one before it and the one after it.  A day that reoccurs as the middle sister in the middle seat of a car stopped in traffic.

My whole body hurts.  It's a nursing home of complaints: my foot, my back, my shoulder, my right side, my head, my lungs, my jaw.

I search the dark for a reason to get out of bed. I find a dozen good ones but none of them are mine.

The weeks between travel tend to do this to me.  Time is sliced and place between two bookends.  In that space I can never find myself.

There isn't time to slip off into the white of winter nor is there time to chase the cold, rosy light at the end of a snow bit trail.

Do you work today, he asks when I finally appear in the bedroom doorway.  Without knowing what day it is I answer yes.

There is News and coffee and the sound of a cat wanting to be let out. The house around me accepts the day as I wait.

If I could do anything, I ask myself... I search.  My mind drives the roads. It scans the valley.  I see groceries bought with a credit card.  Phone bills, electric bills, tuition, and school projects piling up.

If I could do anything today I would go back to bed.

Sometimes the dark is delicious like coffee and I can swim in it.
Sometimes it is thick and sticks like tar so that nothing gets done.

This darkness is like a sheet of thin plastic in the wind.  It billows around me. When I breathe it gets in my mouth.  When I try to see it covers my eyes.  It is noisy too.  A trap in the wind flapping.

Hidden beneath it I am a ghost.  I get up. I workout. I shower. I clean. We do school. I prep dinner. I leave for work. I work. I return. We eat dinner.  I go to bed.

In my dreams I stand in the doorway of an old white house.  The house is down a long dirt driveway. It faces west.  There are trees all around it.  Mountains shadow the sky.  It has a small kitchen and a cozy front room with a fireplace and big chair.  The walls hold nothing but windows and shelves of books. It is always 1:00 in the afternoon.  And it is silent minus the ticking of the clock.