The Classic Sport Of Field Hockey

I have been perusing Susannah Conway’s photos of her August Break series and they are lovely. It makes me think that life is peaceful somewhere.

August has been anything but a break. School starts next week but school prep is in full swing.

The boy has a ton of summer work to finish and the girl has summer reading. Do you remember having this much school work – in the summer? Teachers, please explain.

On top of summer school work, there’s fall sports – which starts in the summer. The girl said she didn’t want to go through high school without playing a sport and I commend her for that. She told me at the beginning of summer that she wanted to try field hockey.

Well, alrighty.

Since we were in Indiana last weekend, we missed the first couple of days of tryouts. As a result, we were well behind the curve. We showed up in the middle of the week, not knowing a single bloody thing about what to do.

We walked into practice and into the inquiring stares of fifty other girls. It could be a little bit disconcerting for a grown woman like myself but for a fourteen year old girl – well she just wants to dig a hole and die.

The girl turned to me and hissed, “I told you I didn’t want to do this.”

Okay now, my head knows exactly where she is coming from. It’s uncomfortable – ok – it’s scary to face an unknown situation like this.  But it’s 6:30 in the morning, it’s raining, and I’m in my pajamas in the middle of a high school field with my flip flops on. I should have let it go.

But I didn’t.

I said to her, “It was your idea.”

Which it was. Just like all this horse stuff is her idea as well. If I were to make micro-manage her like she thinks I do, her life  would look very different. It wouldn’t be filled with horse poop and hockey sticks. Instead, she would be a ballerina, play the piano and paint watercolors.

She has no idea…

She gave me a terrible, Mom-I-hate-you-look and she said, “Well I’ve changed my mind.”

I sighed and said, “Well, we’re here now.”

I stood there for two hours and watched the girls as they went through their conditioning. They ran around the fields and up and down hills through the rain. I then knew why I never played high school sports. It’s crazy hard. I didn’t think she would be go back.

But she did. She is sore and tired. She walks around the house like Geppetto’s puppet without strings, ready to drop like a pile on the floor. I have massaged her legs, her back, and her wrists. She has consumed more calories in the past week than she has all summer.

And she has made it through the first round of cuts. I don’t know if she’ll make the team, the second round is coming up soon. But I do know I’m proud of her no matter what happens.

I don’t know if I’ll survive high school. Of course I said that about Middle School, puberty, and the Terrible Twos.