My word for you this week is “Don’t show up and miss it”. My ten year old son was offered the opportunity to play on his school’s varsity team. What a huge thing for a fifth grader! He would get to play alongside seniors, travel to away games, budget money for meals, and hang with the upperclassmen while facing the giants of the opposing team. He was like little David out there in the story of David and Goliath against all those big guys. I was so proud of him!
I have had the grand pleasure of being at all his home games and two of the away ones as well. At their third home game, I planted my fold out chair up close to the boundary line and watched intently, following my sons every move. He had some great blocks, assists, and other plays I don’t know the names of. My intensity waned after my recently imbibed hot tea caffeine rush wore off, and I saw someone I had a question for. I turned to her and started the conversation. It wasn’t lengthy or in-debth, but suddeny the familiar voice of one of the teachers directed toward me, “Did you see Reuben?!” To my utter dismay, the realization of what had just happened swept over me like a lead curtain. My son had made a goal playing varsity soccer and I missed it. I was right there and missed it!! I missed it because I took my focus off what I was there for. I showed up, yet I missed it.
I wanted to crawl in a hole in the soccer field grass and cover myself as I felt the judgment of the teachers and other parents thinking their condescending thoughts that were intruding their heads about me missing my son make his goal because my attentions were elsewhere. I was humiliated and largely angry at myself. I couldn’t even stop the game to see how Reuben felt. I didn’t even cheer because it was too late. He did tell me later he did see me smiling at him when he looked up at me after he had scored; so maybe it didn’t hurt his feeling too badly. But it didn’t change my knowing that I had showed up and missed it…entirely.
I don’t want to do this with my kids’ lives, showing up yet missing it.
There is so much more than having your body one place but your mind or heart somewhere else. I want to be fully present. I’ll be very transparent there were many days and fun weekends when I was present in body but my mind was elsewhere or turned introspectively. Yes, my body was around the dinner table at Friday Family Fun Night, our weekly endcap, but I was somewhere else entirely. I am working at fully being present. Otherwise, I will look back and wonder where I was or what happened, and I don’t want to have any regrets.
