I've been thinking about my first love a lot lately...

A few days ago, and not for the first time recently, an old friend was asking if I was running into a lot of old boyfriends now that we’ve moved home. I told him I see a couple fairly frequently, and he asked if it was awkward seeing old loves. I told him no, and that they weren’t “loves.” I told him Cameron was the only man I’ve ever loved. “No unrequited first love?” he teased.

Oh yes, there was a first love, but it wasn’t a boy. My first love was basketball.

From the time I was very, very young, I was head over high tops in love with basketball. Eating and breathing and dreaming about it kind of love. Basketball and I were going to spend the rest of my life together. Quite literally, for you see, it wasn’t playing basketball that I was so passionate about, though I loved that part of it. I was truly, madly, deeply in love with coaching basketball.

I remember the very moment I decided that I wanted to be a basketball coach. I was 7 years old, and we were living in Ira, Texas, where my dad was coaching. Every season, right around the holidays, Ira held a basketball tournament for other itty bitty schools in the area. And for the first time that I realized, I saw a GIRL coaching. In my little bubble, I guess I assumed that Daddy and Coach Cook were the only two coaches in the world, since they were the only two we had at Ira. But this woman was young, beautiful, with big hair, colored Rockies and colored boots…. very 1991. And she was giving that game everything she had. She paced up and down the sideline, willing each shot in the basket, constantly instructing her girls, trying to talk the refs out of and into calls. I’m pretty sure I just stared the whole game. The clouds opened and angels sang. THIS is what I wanted to be when I grew up.

For the next 12 years, I don’t think I ever wavered in my career ambitions. And I realized I was equally as excited to coach other sports, such as softball and track. Oh, how I loved to coach track. It was entrenched in my bones. So much so that it escaped every now and then, which made my teammates just LOVE me! Every new coach I played for, every new school, I watched and studied the good and bad. I came very, very close to not playing basketball my senior year of high school, but realized very quickly that the bench offered me the best possible position to learn from a very good coaching staff. I chose to go to Angelo State, partly because it was home and cheapest, but mostly because it’s known for producing some of the best coaches in the state of Texas.

But, I never coached a game of high school, or even junior high, basketball. I coached some 6^th grade summer league while in college, but it was never my job.

Because when I was 19, I did fall in love. Real, deep, world starts spinning, love. The kind of love that made what I felt for any sport seem like a playground crush. I only thought God had designed me to be a coach. I knew then that He designed me to be Cameron’s wife, and the mother of his children. I always knew one day I’d have a family that I’d spend time away from during a season, but now that hypothetical family was very real, and the thought of them consumed me.

So I decided that coaching other peoples’ girls was not the path for me. I’d have children of my own that I could coach at home until they were old enough to play organized sports, then I’d coach their teams. Boys or girls, didn’t matter to me. They’d be the most fundamentally sound 4^th graders around J I hope they don’t hate me K

People have asked me a lot lately what I’ll do when Brynna starts kindergarten in the fall. Will I go back and coach? Nah. The fire for coaching is still there, but I have no desire to step into a classroom right now. Plus, coaches don’t always have the luxury of handpicking where they’ll coach, and I will not move our girls away from Wall.  I honestly don’t plan on going to work right away. Maybe in a couple of years, but I’ve loved being able to be involved with D’Laney’s school, I want to do the same for Brynna.

I think I would have been a good coach. I’ve helped my nephew a little with high jump this year, and I realized how much I miss it. But it doesn’t compare at all with the life I have now. I guess it is like that first love. You think about it every now and then, get a little nostalgic and miss things about it, but know that God had bigger and better plans for you, and are thankful that you followed where He led.

A Sabbatical

I'm going to take some time off from social media. I'm addicted. Really, truly addicted. I think in Instagram captions and Facebook updates. I've realized this for a while, and it would give me a chuckle, but it's no longer funny to me.
Last night, while checking Facebook before going to bed, I learned that one of my favorite fellas from high school has cancer. In his wife's update, she thanked everyone for their offers of food, babysitting, etc, but said the best thing any of us could do is pray and donate blood. I thought, I can surely do that. And my very next thought was not bowing my head on behalf of my buddy and his precious family. I was already mentally writing a post about donating blood for the first time, no one could get me in that chair but Cole! hahahaha....
To quote one of my least favorite people on earth, it was an Ah-ha moment. It was pathetic. Sickening. I have a problem.
I don't think that social media is the problem. I think it can be a fantastic way to stay in touch with people that you otherwise wouldn't. I can keep up with friends I've made at each stop on our coaching road, from various church camps, or my Phi Lamb sisters. I've gotten to "know" Dad's players that are quite a bit older than me, or people that Cameron grew up with, that I would never have gotten a chance to in real life. And not a day goes by where I don't have someone telling me how much they look forward to hearing what crazy things the girls have said lately, or see their precious faces. I love sharing them. But I don't like this part of me.
I've always known I have a tendency to become addicted to things. Coca-Cola, I'm looking at you! There are lots of reasons why I don't drink alcohol, that's chief among them. I have such self discipline in a few areas of my life, none at all in others. Cameron and I have been talking a lot about this lately. About trying to take control of the things that I let control me. I'm (trying) to make a lot of changes to the way I do things: studying the Word, eating, exercising, spending money (both not on some things, and ON other things,) the way I keep books for our business... Adding my phone, and all that is on it, to that list never crossed my mind. How glaringly obvious that it should be at the top.
So, I'm going to take the month of January off. Like, removing those apps from my phone, off. I'm not deleting anything, just avoiding. After that, I'll have to learn where my boundaries are. Hopefully I'll get to the point where I don't even realize I'm without these silly little time suckers.