This soccer mom retires her cleats
4/16/2014
Although this post is a little less 'therapist' and more 'mom' than normal, I write with both hats as I know many of my clients who have been on a baseball field, pool bleacher or dance theater and can definitely relate to the sentiments presented.
Grab your cleats, water bottle, shin guards and GET IN THE CAR...the words of every soccer mom.
Week after week, practice and dinner, dinner and practice and then weekend games. Home or Away? House or Travel League? Win or Lose?
The soccer moms were my lifeline "can you drive him, I have a client ?" . "We are out of town, can he stay with you for that game?" "I got this practice, can you get tomorrow?".
We spent hours on bleachers together; the soccer moms (and dads). Freezing our tails off and burning into lobsters - soccer has no regard for the weather, if the fields are open they are playing.
So many different teams; the three-year-old clinics, the house league made up of kids from the elementary school, the All Star team and the merging of house teams to make a travel team. Each season new faces; new players bringing with them new parents.
The parents became my friends. I spent more time with them than with my dearest girlfriends. It was so very seasonal; we'd be in each other's faces all Fall until the break before a short indoor Winter season and then Spring season started up again. We rarely spoke to one another off season, but there were always warm greetings and hugs at the beginning of a new game rotation.
Tournaments, oh the tournaments. Up at o'dark thirty to drive hours to a field in nowheresville. Myself, another mom and four boys in my van. It was always sweeter heading out than the return trip with the sweaty socks and smelly boys on their phones in the back. We've had team meals all over Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, gathered in many a hotel lobby for pizza and once, even washed the uniforms in the hotel laundry room. And, never was a weekend so much fun and connecting than the exhausting cold (and/or hot) tournament weekends.
Constant laughter filled the parent cheering section. We rooted for each other's kids and cringed together when one of our players missed a crucial shot. At every (and their were many) injury, all the moms pooled their Advil and ice in the spirit of healing. On the sidelines we talked about books and vacation spots, we compared notes about our growing kids and tried to get the scoop on our own kid from a more-knowing mom.
We always had a season end party; often at my house which was a lot of fun. Fourteen sweaty boys in my basement playing X-box and a bunch of parents celebrating another good season of soccer and teamwork.
With the start of each season we would lose a player or two. They moved, switched schools or went to another team. For me, it was sad. I missed the kid and I missed the mom, my friend. I would bump into her at the grocery store, we hugged, caught up and moved on to our shopping list. Where was the bond? Was it a real friendship? All those texts between games, the laughter in our soccer chairs with the sun beating on our faces, it was so genuine at the moment and then our kids took us to different fields and new parent groups.
I could always count on the next season bringing another new kid with new parents. New friends. More car pool combinations. More tournaments and laughter.
Last year there was a shift. High school made for more options: Cross Country team, track, swimming and basketball. The kids had new and differing interests. They also had more school work and less time.
My kid began Cross Country/Track all three seasons; he liked it and was progressing really well. Daily practices, weekly meets as well as a heavy academic load plus soccer practices and games became overwhelming. It was too much to make it all work and something had to give - my kid quit soccer.
Suddenly, I am a track mom.
But, what about our soccer friends? The connections, the games, the great coach and the wonderful memories.
Was it all just that: soccer? He misses it, he loves soccer, but he is running and has joined a new group of athletes. Does he feel the loss like I do? I miss the team, the friends, the game. Sure, he misses it, but he is a sixteen year old boy, not a hormonal therapist mom who oozes in emotions.
Don't get me wrong, track is great. The parents are wonderful and supportive, the coach is tough and committed. A Cross Country meet can be half as long as a soccer game and the school provides buses!, but I miss MY soccer people.
What does it all mean? This role of being the kids' mom to whatever activity is the activity du jour? Are connections fleeting? Were they real? Was it just in the moment on that one field?
I don't have the answers, but I do have great memories and wonderful people in my heart that I know will cross my path again be it in the produce section or on some bleacher in my future.