Supply list for 18th grade: Scissors, Duct Tape, and a Nalgene Waterbottle

Tomorrow I meet my advisees at orientation.
Thursday I begin class.
Next Monday I begin my internship at Boston Medical Center.

Abundant with gratitude, I breathe calmly because my final year of graduate school gets rolling with a gradual start. I can only imagine the number of four letter words and emotionally charged texts I'd be giving out if it all happened on one day!

In honor of the first week of school, it seems fitting to tell you about the items required for a successful encounter with the 18th grade--or so I think, perhaps there will be a sequel to this post after graduation next May.

Scissors:
When I lived with my best friend during our senior year at SLU, we got to know each other's quirks in a whole new way. She realized I have my own style of watching television--it involves turning on the device then turning my back and cooking dinner or opening my compute to catch up on emails. I learned that she has tons of nifty tricks to help one live frugally. When it got to the point that a squeeze provided no progress, Annie would use scissors to cut open her toothpaste tube or face wash or lotion container--she knew there was more inside to be used.

My school scissors are for opening myself up so I can dig deeper and find the good stuff still inside me. This is going to be a tough year--physically, emotionally, and mentally. I'm in a 4-day a week internship as well as a full load of classes. This internship gives me the opportunity to do therapy with my first clients...but I have to be ready to see my first client at 8am, which means I have to leave the house around 6:50 to get not he subway, which means I have to wake up at 5 to run. I'm out of practice with the early-wake up call because I've been injured since December. And after I leave the clinic, I head straight to swim practice where I get to coach 13&unders for 2-3 hours, ending just in time for me to get home to go to bed. I'm going to need every last ounce of will power, desire, confidence, compassion, and dedication I can squeeze out...and then some.

Duct tape:
In middle school I learned of the reinforcing power of duct tape. You can get the sparkly or neon kind and make borders on your notebooks and folders from the dollar store when they begin to get tattered and torn--usually by Thursday of the first week. Even if you get the more expensive laminated notebooks, they're still going to fall apart, it's just a matter of time.

If you're just hearing about fun duct tape now, go get some here!

Things fall apart. That's just how life it. It's messy and mostly unpredictable. When this year whips me around too fast or tries to squeeze me into a space where I don't really fit, I'll bounce back, of course, but I'm also going to need some duct tape to hold the pieces of me together. There's no shame in needing some help to keep it together.

Nalgene Waterbottle:
The nalgene water bottle came on the market when I was in middle school or that's when it became popular. I'm not going to look it up. These honkers were big and colorful and virtually indestructible. For a swimmer who has her water bottle kicked around the pool deck and thrown a bit too hard to her in the pool where it smashes on the gutter, these babies were magic! Enough water to last through practice and the ride home AND we didn't have to worry about them cracking or leaking. GODBLESSAMERICA.

Nalgene's made me feel prepared and safe. I need one this year to hold my confidence and compassion. It's gotta be a nalgene because it's gotta be refillable while also being unbreakable. Last year, as an intern with the Dept of Children and Families, the softness of my skin became a concern rather for the first time. I took things home with me and thought about them often. Though I wasn't traumatized by what I heard and saw, it affected me deeply. And that's okay. I'm supposed to feel, but feel with an tough skin and a fluid center. Every time I sit down with a client, I will be pouring myself into our conversation. I need to keep my lid off when I leave so I can remember to be refilled. It's that self-care stuff my professors tell us about at least once each class period.

There are still lots of Labor Day sales going on--go buy your stuff! Happy learning!

Dry but proud

As a swim coach, my swimmers know they have the opportunity to push me in the water (yes, with all my clothes on) when they win a meet. They've put in hours and hours of practice and walked around deck sopping wet for hours that night and they want to let me share in their joy in a very special way. Driving home soaking wet the way I did many times last summer was uncomfortable but I was beaming with pride the entire time because I knew exactly what went into winning that meet that resulted in pushing me in.

I've got a different team this summer--a total 180 from last years 5-year no-loss streak, this team hasn't won in quite some time. Granted, they've had some terrible coaching and less than stellar parental involvement. But things are looking up, we didn't win on Monday but we came darn close. In fact, we were winning for about 3/4 of the meet, then we just got super tired.

Although I drove home completely dry, I drove home happy and even more proud than any week last summer. I had dried tears. I had given dozens of high fives. I had screamed my face off and had shuffled up and down the deck supporting my swimmers. Mary swam 2 legs on a relay and then gotten back behind the block to swim the last leg on the following relay. Megan won 1st in the 100 back right after telling me she wasn't sure she was going to be able to do it and if she did, it would take her 5 minutes. Chase took over some spots for kids that didn't show up. Cindy (one of the moms) gave me a sippy cup of wine. Ashley promised me she'd swim up in two weeks if she could practice longer races at practice. Jackson swam some of the best butterfly I've ever seen from a 10 year-old and, more importantly, he was proud of how he did.

When I was younger, I never understood how people could say "it's not about winning" and really mean it. In my mind, that's all there was. You won or you lost. If you won you did well and if you lost, well, you didn't do enough. Now I see what it is though. I came into this summer season with the goal of transforming the team--morale, competency, responsibility, etc. That can and probably will still happen, but it is not my goal any longer. My goal is simple to say, hard to do: get kids to believe in themselves.

I want the answer to any question about their abilities to always be: YES I CAN.