Last Class… Bash?

Today was the last time I walked into class and took a seat as an undergraduate student at Mount Saint Vincent University, I do not know how to feel about this. I am very excited that school is coming to an end, that I get to spend my summer on the soccer field, that after four long years and a whole lot of work I am going to cross that finish line.  However there is a scary part to all of this. I am someone who has never really known my end goal, where I want to be or what I am going to end up doing.

With that being said I have always been someone who has forged a path, not always the one of least resistance, but I have made my way to where I am today. I made it here through sheer determination, hard work, some goal setting, and of course I made a ton of lists, and I made lists about those lists. I have always been someone who knows which step comes next, or which project I need to work on next, I am terrified as for the first time I do not know my next move, I feel like my life is so open ended. This could be a great thing for me or it might not be, that has yet to be determined. I am just anxious to find out what is going to happen to me next.

It is not that I am the student who counted the minutes until I got to leave university; I had a great time at The Mount, best four years I have had. I have met some incredible people, I have learned some pretty cool things, and I made some irreplaceable memories. I am grateful for every moment I have had, and every person who made my experience what it was. I am just looking forward to the road that lies ahead, I always seem to find a great adventure or a great experience in everything I choose to do. I am hoping this will be no different.

Four years have come and gone, I am happy I earned a piece of paper I can hang on my wall, but more importantly I am happy about the fact I earned a future, I made friends, I learned a lot about who I was, about who I could be. I had hilarious nights, and I had perfect days. I feel lucky and honoured that I had such a great time, and I am hoping that my future will bring just as many, if not more, good days and happy days than I have already had.

Making The Cut

This is my least favourite time of the year; summer soccer tryouts are in full swing. I remember how they used to make me feel when I played, I remember worrying for weeks about my spot, I remember having friends get cut, I remember having friends switch teams. It is hectic and stressful for young athletes. Not only are coaches putting on the pressure, their parents put the pressure on, their friends put the pressure on, but I find the most pressure comes from themselves. They are hard on themselves; they are their toughest critics. Yes this is a good thing, it means they are self-motivated, that they are determined, and they know what they want and how hard they are going to have to work to get it. However I would say that a lot of pressures these young ladies face at this age is not needed, and I find that is has driven a lot of young players to leave their sports of choice.

I know selecting a summer team for many coaches could be something they enjoy, me not so much. Yes it is a sign summer is on the way, and yes I get to make 16 – 20 young ladies very happy when they find out they made the team. However I feel bad about the ones who don’t make the cut, the ones I have to leave behind. There are some I don’t know and have never met, there are some I know well and will miss dearly. It is hard to separate doing the right thing and doing the nice thing. I cannot help but think that the moment the lists are posted I break some hearts, and I hate having that on me.

Last year this time we were fighting to cut a player, we didn’t think she was ready, we ended up taking her and she proved us wrong in a serious way. This year we found ourselves fighting to keep her, which should never have even been a discussion. I am happy to report she made the team and I look forward to seeing what she has to offer the team this year.

Although we did not win our winter league, and although we don’t always look like the best team I know I have a team full of ladies that all have the hearts of champions. They surprise me every time they step on the field; they make me proud in everything they do on and off of the field (expect for the PEI incident last year, but I sometimes forget that kids will always be kids.) These last three years have been a pleasure; I have met them I have seen them grow as athletes, as people, and as a team. When I think about the day I will have to give this all up it deeply saddens me, as I know these young ladies have taught me and given me more than I could ever teach them. For that I am forever grateful.

Even though this weekend was tough (and very cold), and even though I was forced to make some incredibly tough decisions it does not take away from the fact that I am lucky to have this opportunity. I do not take that for granted and more than anything I am really looking forward to another great summer, and it all begins tomorrow.

Quote – Failing

This quote is one I used to have posted on the walls of my room; it would be the first thing I saw upon waking up. They used to be words I lived by. Somehow, someway at some point on my journey to right now I let these words get away from me. Last night after a long day, I got home and they were posted in a friends Facebook status. Reading the words really took me back, reminded me what they used to mean to me. Some days I am far too hard on myself, and I think I need to start getting back to the place I remember. The place where I took a hard day and turned it into a good one, where I took a failure and turned it into a teachable moment, where anything bad that happened was going to lead me to something bigger and better. I think as we grow up, as we start to face the pressures of the world, we forget that sometimes a mistake or a misstep can be something positive in the end. We put too much pressure on ourselves to be these unflawed, completely errorless perfect humans, which is so far fetched and ridiculous as I can tell you that not one exists in the entire world. So maybe it is time to start embracing your trips, your falls, and your slipups, you cannot undo what has been done, you cannot go back in time and win the big game or make the big shot, but you can work harder to win the next one or get the next shot in.

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

– Michael Jordan

What Is Your Happiness?

Happiness is a funny word; it has one definition, but billions of meanings. Every person views happiness different and every person finds happiness in different places. One of my friends threw me off about a two months ago when they asked me if I was truly happy. My first response was to ask them if they were mocking me, as Oprah had that very day done a show on happiness, and everyone knows my love for Oprah. However they in fact had no intent to pick on me about that when they asked. Therefore I took no time at all to answer, no thought involved at all. I said that of course I was happy. I could not understand why I would not be, I have a great life, I have great friends, things could not be going more right, and lately I have been uncharacteristically optimistic. However the one thing I did not realize at the time was this friend was not really asking about my happiness because they were genuinely interested in my state of being, I believe this person was concerned about their own happiness. Which is why when I think back about the second part of our conversation, I am embarrassed. I must have sounded so pretentious, and so very idiotic.

After I declared my undying happiness, and optimism for the future my friend decided to throw me a curveball and ask me the one question I had no idea how to answer. The one thing they wanted to know was

Taste of Defeat

“Victory is sweetest when you have known defeat.”

– Malcolm S. Forbes

Two and a half months later I am thinking I finally have the words to put ACAA championships into perspective. First and foremost the simplest way to put it is we lost, secondly the only way to describe the events of that fateful Saturday is to say it was devastating. And finally I would be lying if I did not say that those two hours might in fact have changed my entire outlook. We gave everything we had, and still lost, I made the best penalty shot of my life and it was still saved. Giving everything you have may only be half of the story; the other half might be

How I Ended Up Here.

This is my second attempt at blogging, there are a few reasons me and blogging did not work out our first go around. It is not that I lost interest in it the first time, I just found that I had a lack of time. Now that graduation is looming I am looking forward to finding a few more minutes in the day to do what I love. As well recently I have learned that if you don’t make the time to do the things you enjoy you might never get to do them.

The second reason is I initially started a joint blog, it made it difficult as neither of us had interest in the blog at the same time. Therefore I thought It was time to branch out, try and see how I will survive on my own. Now that I have told you how I ended up here I thought I might post a few of my more popular posts from my other blog to this page.

I hope you enjoy, happy reading!!

– M

Growing Up & Moving Out

I have never been one for expression or writing, but for quite sometime my sister and I have been pondering the idea of beginning a blog.  My biggest reservation about this whole idea from the start has been what we each would write about. However as of late I have realized that all of the “what ifs” in life were stopping me from being spontaneous. I have always been the worrying type, but figured at some point I should just allow myself to go with the flow.  And what better time than now?!

I am going into my fourth year university, I am in that funny twenty something stage in life where I am still not sure who I am or what I want, yet still know where I came from and who I want to be.

This week is a year in our household, my sister who has experienced a little more of her twenty something’s has moved out for the first time, which is exciting, yet scary (for both of us!) When I was much younger I dreamed of a world in which I was an only child, and now faced with the prospects of actually becoming an only child I am conflicted. I am happy for her, I am excited for all of us to begin this new chapter, but I feel like this is the first really grown up thing we have faced and it just means there are so many more things much like it we will be facing soon. Yes many years ago I may have dreamed of a world without her, but now I cannot picture my life without her.

We may have spent much of our youth picking on each other, stealing each others clothes and beating each other up, heck we still do all of that. However in the last five years we have become even closer, the relationship I have with her is like no other in my life. I feel I am a lucky lady to have such a close family, and I know that will never change no matter how near or far apart we live, luckily she has moved pretty close to home (apartment and location approved by yours truly.) With all of that being said we thought maybe it was time to stop talking about starting a blogs and actually do it, so here I am ready to begin, between the two of us we have about… zero writing and blogging experience but I guess that is just part of this whole adventure. It is something we can learn together, something we can share in, and of course hopefully it is something we can be proud of.

– M