When I was a little girl in school I never really belonged to any organized group. Others in my class belonged to the Girl Guides, Brownies, Boy Scouts, etc... I was never that into sports, either. Well I shouldn't say that. I was into it some in elementary school. I remember being on the nukem ball team in grade 5. It's like volleyball, only you are allowed to catch the ball. I think we even traveled and played against another team, I just can't remember the school. Gretna Green seems to come to mind. Although I loved to play, I didn't enjoy it very well, because it was a team sport. I always had the fear of letting my team down. Whenever I would miss the ball, I would apologize over and over again. Too much pressure.

I remember I loved to run. On Field Day at school, I would always enter those relay races where you had to pass the batond. This too was a team sport but I remember loving the competition and the feeling of running with all of your might. I would race against all the boys in those meter dashes (50m?) and win! What a feeling!!! To beat one of the boys just seemed to feel so much sweeter. Winning really never mattered that much to me though, even then. I just loved how running made me feel. Where did that go? That courage to compete. To put yourself out there. To let the love of participating out weigh the idea of being judged. I think, for me, it stayed in elementary school. I don't remember ever having it after that. Maybe this is true for a lot of us. There are so many things that change when we enter Junior High and then Senior High. I cared more about what people thought of me, than what I thought of myself. A disease I still struggle with to this day.

Whenever that issue comes up, my Mother always says

"Don't be a doormat!"

or even better yet the infamous mantra

"You're a chair! Don't be a chair!"

which refers to an incident in the first grade where my "friend" did not want to get her snow suit wet, so I sat in the snow and she sat on me. I was her chair. I swear I will be 65 years old and my Mom will be in her eighties and she will still bring up the "chair" story.

Now I am the Mother. My kids are four and two years old. The force is very strong with them. I am thinking of signing up my four year old boy and girl (twins) in soccer for the summer. In their age group, they do not play actual games. So there is no real competition, just the love of participating. Who knows? Maybe by watching them I can rediscover it in myself.