I have not ever really been a social person, but in my years of trippin' I became even less social. I felt everyone knew my dirty little secret, everyone that looked at me knew, "Oh there's the drug addict" I judged myself harsher than anyone on the outside could possibly ever judge me. As a result I withdrew into my own personal shell of self judgment and unworthiness. When someone tells you trippin' takes a lot out of them, they aren't exaggerating. Tripping reaches all crevices of your being, places you didn't even know could be impacted. You feel like all eyes are on you. As a mom of 6 kiddos that was a tough reality to swallow! I never wanted people to judge me, but more than that I absolutely never wanted anyone to judge my kids based on the fact that I was trippin'. I carried the shame and the embarrassment I did not want my babies to feel an ounce of it. However, when I decided, this past December, that I was going to start on this quest of triathlons, that I was no longer "that person." When I found solace in my sobriety when I began to hold firm to the fact that my character spoke volumes for who I was, the less I judged myself, the more I felt worthy to have others in my bubble. Oh, don't get me wrong! This did not mean in any sense of the word that I was your outgoing extrovert that was going to strike up vast amounts of conversations or be the center at any social gathering, but hey at least I was considering going to those social gatherings and the fear of making eye contact and saying howdy to someone had dissipated. You can't give your all to triathlons and be afraid of people! Little did I know just how quickly my willingness to speak to others would change my life in such drastic ways.
Baseball has become a spring staple in our house. January we sign the kids up for baseball, followed by tryouts, practices, and games that all ensue until June. I love it, my kids love it, rarely is there a game that all 8 of us don't attend! We are often at a game or practice 6 days a week and many of those days for several hours, but it is just a hobby, something fun. However, this year it has become more than just a hobby, this year, baseball changed my life, and forever the course of my family. Garrett is a decent ball player he loves to learn he loves to be challenged and coached. He had his heart set on moving up to the next level of ball this year. He was confident, he knew he could do it, I knew he could it, and I cheered him on each step of the way. However, days before tryouts the plague struck our house, okay so not really the plague but that crazy strand of flu that was going around, and my kids were all sidelined. Garrett was on his way to feeling better and insisted he attend tryouts. He blew it. Pitches he could have easily sailed into the outfield turned to strikes, grounders that he had to put little effort into stopping skirted by him, and pop flies that he could have easily sunk bounced off the ground all around him. As he we walked to the car, he said, "Mom, I will be AA again this year. I hope I'm not but I will be, I did terrible." I am a most competitive person in all facets of my life, especially when it comes to ball. I grew up playing I know how to play. I put my arm around him and said we will see what happens. I hurt for my boy, I know how badly he desired to move up, but in that I was also dealing with my own pride. I wanted my boy up a notch I wanted him to learn and grow and play to his potential. Little did I know the level to which my pride and humility would come into play, through baseball, and that something like little league baseball would change my life!
Days after the tryouts I opened my email and read an email from an eager and excited coach welcoming all the players to a new AA season. My heart sank a bit, I didn't want to tell Garrett that he wasn't moving up. That afternoon he told me that his classmates had found out they were playing majors, kids he had played with last year were now AAA and I was going to have to break the news to him. I was dealing with a blow to my own ego, dang it I wanted my boy to play up. I called Garrett into the living room after all my other kids had gone to bed and told I am received an email from his new coach and that he was in fact playing AA. In that moment I watched my son possess such grace and dignity that I was humbled, little did I know this was only the beginning of my journey towards humility. He said it's okay mom I like to play baseball. I will learn a lot this year and next year I will do my best at tryouts. When did my little boy become a young man?
I am a very observant person there isn't much that gets by me and when it does it's usually because I just decide to let it slide. I am an instant judge of people and I am 99.9% of the time correct about them. I tend to just hang back and observe to not really interact, kind of just get in and get out as quickly as possible. This has always been my way, however in the years I spent trippin' it became even more so. Pick up on the cues, watch for people, watch your surroundings, I honed in on some already solid skills. Although I hadn't decided I wouldn't talk to the parents, I wouldn't interact with the team, I wouldn't get to know others, I hadn't decided that I would either. A new set of baseball parents is always a crazy interesting dynamic. I dare you to go sit through a game at your local little league field and report back to me, I bet you can spot it all!! The 1st practice I took it all in. Sized up the parents the coaches the players and was just hanging out in that hour of silence as my husband was home and I didn't have to haul the whole gaggle with me. However, that soon changed! A mom reached out to me for my phone as her guy struggled to go on the field and she wanted to call her husband. While she was on the phone my little boy, that is now a young man recognized the kid struggling from school and ran over to him, struck up conversation and coaxed him onto the field to throw a few balls around. The mom handed me back my phone and then we began to talk. Wait what? I was talking to another parent, but more than that a parent of child at my kids' school! Who was I? What had happened to my antisocial ways? The more we talked, I realized her youngest son and my kindergartner were buddies, this is one of the kids Kyle was always talking about (and in a good way I might add)
Slowly as the season progressed I spoke to more and more of the parents, I sat with them, laughed with them, cheered with them and got to know a little about each one. I quickly realized how many of them had kids that were in my kids' classes how many of them knew each other, but what I noticed the most was how kind they were. A genuine real kind with each other, with their kids, and with me. I listened to how they spoke to their spouses, I watched how they handled situations with their children, I heard them discuss their day and interactions with others. I heard them encourage children that weren't their own, I watched them handle the heartaches of their players as they didn't make "the play" I watched them celebrate when they did make "the play." I observed how they handled stress of little ones running around, of hot weather, of cold weather, of junky calls from umps, or from less than stellar opposing coaches. There was something about this team, something that was drawing me in, yet I had no idea why and furthermore I had no idea they all knew each other outside of the realm of Rubber Ducks AA baseball. However, along with this set of parents I also observed the coaches. Yep, totally not going to lie I was in protective mode sometimes. Coach Dallin was hard on my boy. After one especially "hard on my boy" practice I said, "Garrett do you think Coach is hard on you?" He said of course he is mom. I looked at him and he laughed and said, "Another kid on my team does something and he is like great job high fives I do the same thing and Coach tells me what I did wrong" I started to reply but my not so little boy but my young man says, "He does it mom because he knows I can do it. I want to learn mom and this is the best coach I have ever had" Another smack on the pride and the humility belt was tightened even more. Exactly what Garrett had wanted this season, a coach to teach him. It was in that moment that I stopped listening to him coach my son but I started watching him coach a team and my heart was moved by this guy that showed an amazing amount of love for his own son on the team, but a coach that cared deeply about each of his players, even at the expense of pissing off the opposing team's coach.
It was in such a moment, that Garrett's coach from last year, was all fired up, Coach Dallin was all fired up, that I made the comment on the bleachers about how Garrett almost quit last year and how much he appreciated Coach Dallin. The sentence that followed, forever changed my life, forever changed the life of my family. The team mom said, "He is so quiet at church but he gets fired up at baseball" I watched this fired up at baseball coach and I watched him stand his ground for what he believed to be right and true for his players, his boys! You could absolutely see the anger in his eyes, and the frustration in his words but Coach Dallin held true to what he believed was right for his team. It was in that moment that I began to not only appreciate but respect this coach that was placed into my son's life! The coach that gave up chapstick because Garrett didn't have any and was miserable on the field, the coach that listened to what this players said and the coach that believed in them even when they had doubts in themselves, ie my boy and pitching! There was a coach on the filed formulating my son's life in huge ways while there was a group of parents on the bleachers formulating my life in ways I had yet to understand. A group of coaches on the field and families off the field that were about to change our family forever.
The season came to a disappointing end, as a result of, yep a rookie mistake by my son. He was on 3rd base, ran on a pop fly, it was caught and the 3rd baseman was quick enough to tag the bag, double play, last inning of the game, and my son was the last out. Garrett couldn't hold back the tears, he has a heart like that! So big, so loving, so sensitive and a heart that he gives completely to whatever he is doing. I look over and I see the disappointment in his coach's face, but what I also see his him with an arm around my son, in that moment where my boy blew it, his coach was letting him know, hey it's ok! In that moment the respect I already had established for him grew 10 fold. The season was over, life was crazy, summer was beginning, and next year there would be a new team, and a whole new set of parents for me to get to know. I had very much enjoyed the season I was so thankful that I had let my guard down and had gotten to know these families and I was equally grateful that so many of our kids would be in school together at the end of the summer. I was finished, that is where it was.
However, in the 2 years since my sobriety God and I have been on again off again and to be frank we were very off again. I was done! I didn't even know that I believed in God, I had gotten sober on my own, I had overcome the likes of BPD on my own, I had kept my family together on my own, I had built this crazy farm life on my own, I was doing triathlons on my own. There was no God, I was done! However, something kept nagging me, the team mom's statement, "He is so quiet at church but he gets fired up at baseball." I kept thinking talk to Stacy, ask Stacy about her faith. Yeah NO (that was all in my previous blog if ya' want to read it again) but I did! I followed a prompting to reach out to this person I didn't even know one of the moms from baseball and ask her such a deep such a real and personal question about her faith. It was in doing so baseball began to even more change my life, to even more change the course of my family.
We spoke A LOT! Okay I am absolutely not exaggerating when I say A LOT! I don't even want to begin to tell you how much we talked about God about faith about church. I humbled out, I went! Tattoos, piercings, and all I went. When I walked in that 1st Sunday and I saw those families that welcomed me at baseball, those families that I had spent time observing and watching holding the same values on Sunday as they did everyday at the ball field I knew there was something legit here. Along with the baseball families there were families that I had known for nearly 9 years, families that my kids have grown up with at school. Some I knew better than others some I knew in passing yet each one of these families I had also observed because there was something about them something about the way they handled life that I found so admirable so assuring so peaceful. In that moment, 2 Sundays ago it all came together. I knew what they all had in common. However, I fought the fight for the next 2 weeks. I wanted this, I didn't want it. I believed it, I didn't believe it. It was going too fast, I didn't have a testimony, what if all the people in my life were right what if this church was the wrong church. I was embarrassed to tell the multitudes again this last Sunday why Garrett wasn't there, he was with his Dad, until Coach Dallin says to me, I get it, my parents were separated when I was a kid too. There it was Sunday afternoon and I was sitting in sacrament, Stacy on one side, my kids on the other, baseball and school families scattered through out and I tossed out my fleece to God. I told him okay God, this is it. If I walk out of here as torn as I walked in I am done. You have to make this very clear. Little did I know He had answered my prayer before I even knew to pray it.
The 2nd speaker walked up to the podium and said he was supposed to have spoken a few weeks ago, but was bumped and he had his talk planned for many weeks, however Saturday morning at 4:45 he was prompted by the spirit to change his talk, he didn't know why but he had yielded to the spirit and was going to present a talk that he hoped someone would get something out of. I don't know who this speaker was, he doesn't attend that ward, but I can tell you why he changed his talk, I can tell you why the spirit prompted him. Our Heavenly Father knew the confusion of my heart, our Heavenly Father knew that my bases were loaded, the count was full and I was either going to strike out and walk away for good or I was going to embrace that last pitch and swing with all my might. As this Brother began speaking the 1st couple of sentences, I leaned over to Stacy trying to hide the tears in my eyes and simply said, "OH MY GOSH!" The entire message was for me. The entire message spoke on just starting out with a desire to believe. His message was written for me. His message was written as if he and I were the ones exchanging thousands of messages over the three weeks prior. I tried so hard to hide my tears that entire talk. The spirit spoke to this Brother and he listened, our Heavenly Father took my fleece and answered the prayers of my heart. I so badly wish I could remember all that was said in this talk to share it with you. I couldn't even remember it that evening to share it with my husband. I think I was in shock, in awe! This stranger followed the spirit to save my spirit!
As I got into my car I sent Stacy a message and just said I need to talk to you. Friday, I sent her a similar message and was going to tell her I quit. I couldn't do this, I didn't have a testimony, I would never have a testimony! I was feeling sorry for myself I was feeling judged by myself and there was no way that I could be ready for baptism on July 18th! I was DONE! However, this message was much different! There was no more doubt there was no more hesitation or questioning, there was peace and honestly kind of a fear because it couldn't have been anymore clear. Never in my entire life did I believe that God so boldly answered prayers, never in my life did I picture that I mattered enough to Him that my doubt and pride would be handled in such an amazing way. Sunday while I sat in a church full of people, with those families from baseball, with the coaches, parents, and players, did I realize the great ways in which baseball forever changed my life and changed the life of my family.
Those four families, they lived life on the field/off the field, in the church/out of the church in ways that impacted this tough, tattooed, pierced, prideful, did not need God (so I thought) lady. I saw the struggles with little ones, I saw the tired in their eyes, yet I saw love, peace, respect, and something I did not understand until Sunday, when I sat in a room with them and our Heavenly Father showed me who He is. My bases were loaded, the count was full, and I was prepared to drop my bat, walk back to the dugout, and go on with my life. However, our Heavenly Father threw me a pitch that I connected with and my game is still on. I share all this with you tonight, because not only have I gone from a trippin' cocaine addict to training for IMTX but my spiritual life has also gone from trippin' to something much more rewarding. No, all my blogs won't be about God and church, so don't run off scared! However, there is no denying what the spirit has done for me and for that of my family. I am not going to be your stereotypical Mormon, I am rough around the edges. I don't plan to take my piercings out, I won't cover up my tattoos, and I have no intention of changing wards, but what I do plan to do is continue to show you the amazing and miraculous journey that my life has been on. That I survived all those years trippin', that I am now a triathlete about to do an ironman. My life is a true testimony to our Heavenly Father and how He guides and protects us even when we deny Him. I may not have the words for a testimony but just like those four families that impacted me through their daily interactions in some small way I hope I can impact you on my journey!
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