On your mark, get set, go!

Yesterday my lacrosse team won our conference championship title. A freshman, of all players, scored with 3 seconds left on the clock to push us to an 11-10 victory over the reigning champs. The pandemonium that followed was something to behold. The team ran to hug our goalie across the field, as two seniors ceremoniously poured the contents of our water cooler over our surprised head coach. There were tears, smiles and laughter.

In the midst of all this excitement I was left speechless. Have you ever felt so full of emotions that you physically can't express even just one? I was so happy for our win, full of pride for my boys, and also sad knowing that my time with them would soon be over. As one by one came to hug me I realized that while the victory is the icing on the cake, the cake itself is enough. Every one of them has touched my heart in some way and that wouldn't have changed with or without a victory.

Sports are so much like life. Every person on every team tries day after day to be better, to do more, to make a difference. Individual effort is important but one person can't win a game. You need every player on board and striving for an individual goal. Then this individual goal is a goal that multiple, hundreds actually, of teams are striving for. You can't put in the effort during just one game and expect to win it all. You have to dedicate yourself and give all you have every game and practice all season long. Sometimes even that isn't enough. The friendly competition is important to sports but one thing that always makes me think is that their can only be one winner. Someone always has to lose. Sometimes we don't play to our potential and can blame a loss on that. The harder experience is when you play your best, give your all and you still don't end up on top.

We can't win all the time. Its inevitable that we are going to lose. Whether its a fight with the car, or our computer, or its something bigger like losing someone you couldn't help. It's going to happen. Others are striving for the same goals, and not everyone can reach it. In many cases, only one person out of the billion on the planet can reach it. Knowing that doesn't make us try any less hard. We still work towards the idea of success, the idea of winning it all. And that is part of who we are as human beings. Society dictates that we continually strive for more. New technology, new jobs, new advances....we are conditioned to have a need to keep up, to have to work towards more. The game will never be over until the ultimate victory is achieved....being welcomed into God's kingdom.

In life there are no three strikes, no timed clocks, no referees. It's just us, our faith, our motivation, and our perseverance. All we can do is enjoy the ride, enjoy the little victories and appreciate how lucky we are to win at all. Batter up!

Grown: adj. 1. No longer a child 2. Fully grown.

One thing I often wish I understood as a child was that grown-ups are not invincible. As many children do, I grew up blissfully naïve to the words stress and worry. I knew nothing of their definitions let alone that my parents might experience them. To me, my parents were always happy. The rare times they fought or looked sad could all be explained by my brothers getting in trouble, or dad forgetting the milk. Knowing better now, I consider myself blessed that I grew up in a happy home, with both sets of grandparents and every aunt, uncle, cousin and relative within 30 minutes from one another.

The word grown up is a sort of conundrum. To be grown implies that you have finished growing. You have reached the final level and there can be no more growth. But do we ever really stop growing up? It’s obvious to see the growth between your toddler years and pre-adolescence. Then becoming a teenager with all the hormones attached. It’s not until college and the years after that we really say we must “grow-up”. We get our first job, first apartment, learn to budget, etc. This in turn, for the lucky ones, leads to marriage and a family. They say the second child is much easier because we have learned all the tricks the first time around. We grow and we grow and we grow.

So when are we considered a grown-up? What criteria is necessary to be grown? Do you have to own a house? Have a family? Do your children need to be grown? Or is it simply a maturity level?

The older we get the wiser we are perceived. My grandparents are the wisest and most brilliant people I know. They have been through so many experiences and have survived so many challenges. They have each raised 3 kids, and have helped raise my siblings and me. I am constantly talking to my grandmother about my problems. She prays for many things. Sometimes answers, sometimes guidance, sometimes just to mention that we may need an extra angel looking over us. She often says (paraphrased), “I wish I had an answer for you. All we can do is pray for guidance and trust that God will help you through”. I believe that my experiences cause her to grow as well. My grandmother is 78 years old. If she is still growing……who in the world is fully grown?

I think that is one of the things we are most ignorant about. That our grandparents and parents are still growing, still maturing. They still face new challenges and dilemmas. They might be different than ours but they still face them. Just as we struggle and fail, they do as well. No matter the age, it is difficult to see past our own circumstances and put ourselves in others shoes. It is impossible to know how others feel, to understand why they react the way they do. My daisy could be another persons’ weed and vice versa.

I am 24 years old and all I want to be is a grown-up. I want people to look at me and see a mature adult not a little girl. But the idea of being grown is just an illusion. Maybe the point is that we will never stop growing. God is the only true grown-up. He is the only person that has experienced everything. He sees all, hears all, and knows all. The best we can do is trust that he is helping us grow in the right direction. 

a daisy by any other name

Is a daisy a weed or a flower? The answer is technically both. The answer depends on the location of the flower, the species, and your overall opinion. If a daisy were to pop up in the middle of your freshly manicured lawn you may have a tendency to call it a weed. However, if it popped up in the middle of your blooming flower bed you may say it adds to the beauty of the other flowers. But a daisy growing in a flower bed may not always be beautiful; it depends on the time of its bloom, the size of its accompanying family, and your goals for the flower bed. Who knew defining something so small could be so complicated.

I have always thought of a daisy as a flower. Small as it may be, its persistence in surviving both mother nature and humans desires seems admirable. Its colors so plain individually. But when put together, remind me how simple happiness can be. And a daisy rarely blooms alone. What is a flower without its brother and sisters? When I see more than one I think of it as bouquet. Pulling one up would take away from the whole. I think that's part of their plan. They know that beauty standing alone is easy to overlook, but pure beauty in gathering together is hard to disturb or overlook.

The past year of my life has had many changes and challenges. Personal loses and gains. Growing up is exciting and an adventure, but people rarely tell you that it does not come without change and loss. These changes have made me re-evaluate my faith, relationships, and my beliefs. They always say bad things come in three, but rarely do they say four, fives and sixes. In retrospect, the problems we encounter are never as bad as we see them at the time, and in comparison to others we would normally count our blessings. Never the less they affect us.

I have started thinking of these "bad things" as daisies. One bad thing may not seem so bad by itself. Its easy to pull out of the garden and get rid of. But when more than one thing hits you at the same time, its not as easy to brush them aside. The number of things that happen is then effected by the overall timing. A daisy growing at the same time as the rose bush is blooming is not desired. It would take away from the roses purity. And the timing is then effected by the goals of the flower bed. Did you just plant seeds? Where you starting from scratch? A daisy blooming in the middle of your rediscovery would be advantageous.

Its not to say that daisies are not beneficial. Sometimes the best circumstances come from the bad things. Change is not always bad. We hope that after the bad things we are better for them. That we have grown and survived that change.

Its all about perception. Stepping back and looking at the whole garden rather than a single row or bed. In the grand scheme, is a single daisy taking away from the gardens beauty? The enjoyment we find from it? Or is it just a small matter we are willing to overlook? In most cases it does not.

Worrying about a daisy seems ridiculous when faced with a true weed. One that wraps around and suffocates the violets, snapdragons and roses. There is no question they are a weed through and through. We hope in our life we do not encounter these weeds. But reality is such that most people meet one or two in their time. These are the "bad things" we need to fear. These are the "bad things" we must pray to get through, that we must call on our love ones to help. A daisy seems welcomed in the face of a true weed.

People often say "Go and smell the roses", well I say "Go and enjoy the daisies".