If you are asking me to do something between the hours of 4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. right now, you’re out of luck. I’m booked. That is “second shift.”
If you are a parent, you don’t need me to say much about why youth sports start at 4:30 p.m., or end at 8:30 p.m., or other atrocities that make being a working professional and a parent at the same time rather difficult. We are all a little overmatched in the spring school and sports calendar department right now. I am drowning, barely afloat in joyful activities. Most weeknight meals are packed in the big travel snackle box. You know the week is lit when the actual meal plan is to feed everyone hot dogs from the little league snack shack for dinner.
And I would choose it again.
I simply cannot imagine a place I want to be more than supporting our kids on the side, watching them in real time transform into the people they were meant to become.
And here is the amazing thing that I notice. We are all working parents, leaving our big jobs behind at 4:00 p.m. and convening on the cheering squad. Just from the bleachers where I sit, I can see the pharmacist, the radio host, the realtor, the math teacher, the c-suite leader, the psychologist, and the financial advisor. I don’t even know which fancy and interesting people are feeding their kids hot dogs on fields #3 and #4.
I love that we have all remembered that this is the point. Bearing witness to our small humans growing. I’ve watched these kids souls “grow three sizes that day “ in sports.
I did not know this was my path. I have had to reconcile the difference between what I expected life to be like, and what it actually looks like. It doesn’t always come in the package you imagined. And also, to recognize where it can be so much better than I had planned.
All of this is to say, I am grateful to know the value of the ball diamond. And the swimming pool. And the soccer field, and the lessons they all provide for all of us to enjoy our humanity. And while I would be SUPER grateful if the snack shack would start serving some ancient grain bowls or a big salad once in a while, I know that’s probably out of my hands.
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