Please read.
A personal story.
Happy almost July!
This spring two of my best friends and I started a newsletter and Instagram about what it means to be a sports mom and passing along tips and tricks we wish someone had told us. It’s called In The Loop. Every week one of us writes a mini-essay about a sports moment, and this week it was my turn. I found it highly applicable to this audience as well and wanted to share:
Most people I know are going through some sort of change right now — a job, a house, a new phase of life. I am personally in the middle of a big one too, working my way through a forced move that has felt both overwhelming and painful.
The other night my husband and I were talking, and I allowed myself to dive headfirst into that seemingly endless well of self-pity.
“But I don’t want to move. I don’t have anyone to help me. It’s so, so hot.”
After generously allowing me to reach the end of my wallow, he said, “But hasn’t watching our son play baseball this summer been one of the happiest times of your life?”
And you know what? He was right.
I was letting one hard circumstance cloud all the joy I was experiencing — even the joy that came with lugging massive wagons full of water bottles and chairs and fans and tents across what felt like fifteen parking lots.
I wasn’t focusing on the time spent with one of my best friends. I wasn’t thinking about watching a coach I hugely admire offer my son catching tips and congratulate him after a great hit. I wasn’t even appreciating those hour-long rides home, painstakingly going over every play of the game and offering all my extremely important opinions.
This was the first summer my son got to play summer ball, and for years I had watched those moms from the outside — knowing how much I would love it, hoping someday I’d get to be there too.
And then I was.
I was finally living a month I had desperately wanted, and I was letting other things steal my focus.
But that’s life, right? To be human is to simultaneously feel all the feelings almost all the time (or maybe that’s just being a woman). But as humans, we also have the incredible ability to choose which feelings we want to amplify.
That one sentence from my husband changed my perspective.
My dad always used to say, “You’re only as happy as your least happy child,” and both of my children had incredible Junes — one on the field and one on the stage.
This isn’t an ending. It’s simply a transition.
And isn’t that parenting? Being the lucky witness to a lifelong transition from child to adult?
Life is always changing, but we are lucky enough to have some say in where we place our focus.
If you would like to follow us on Substack or Instagram, I would love that!
I have about 5 more days left in my studio and I’ve gone through all the emotions and sorted all the paintings. Yesterday I wrote this:
This is the last piece I painted in this studio. It’s 40x60” on canvas. please email me at blaynebmacauley@gmail.com with questions.
Have a wonderful 4th!
Blayne