So far June has been a weird month. This morning I’m thinking it all has to do with finding “place.” The 2nd would’ve/should’ve/could’ve been my mom’s 70th birthday. Four plus years after her death I still have some conflicting feelings about how she passed and the years leading up to it. I’m not sure I’ll ever truly have those resolved. What I do know is that with her and my dad both gone and no siblings, I feel displaced, untethered, orphaned. My in-laws have also been visiting the last few days and we celebrated my mother-in-law’s 75th birthday. I don’t begrudge the celebration or my husband having his family, but it does highlight my lack.
June has also brought the start of a new coaching position for me. On paper I have a new place: new school, new team, new opportunities. Exciting stuff, right? When I agreed to move forward my husband’s rule was “No tears.” I’ve already broken that. Finding my exact place is proving a bigger challenge than I thought. Though I am still working with my coaching partner of the last several years, someone who has also been a good personal friend, our dynamic isn’t the same. We’ve gone from both being head coaches (he boys, me girls) working in tandem with each other, to being head coach and assistant. There’s an awkwardness of not knowing what my voice is, or my exact role. I excelled at relationship building and developing the team culture for my girls in the past. I grew to be an adept running coach as well and expanded my knowledge base gaining confidence along the way. Now I show up and have limited responsibility, and uncertainty in what I’m supposed to be doing. The kids and the parents that I’ve met so far have made me feel welcome, but I feel like I’m stumbling along not sure what my actual interactions should be. While I understand the practicality of my head coach saying going into this that we would have to figure it out as we go, I didn’t anticipate it feeling so damn uncomfortable.
We’re taught sometimes that it’s a good thing to leave our comfort zones, that true growth happens when we muddle through discomfort. But then how do we know when something is the right fit? How much time do we allow to pass in the uncomfortableness before we decide it just isn’t working or what we want? How do we deal with the ick of feeling like we don’t belong…at least not yet?
A couple weeks probably isn’t enough time to make a determination. In my coaching past I’ve asked girls to dig deep into foreign territory stretching themselves both physically and mentally. I’ve asked them to believe big things and to commit to working hard to achieve big goals. At the heart of my coaching was always the push though to find place, to build an environment where they each had a role to play and a family to surround them. Right now I’m the foreigner entering the new territory trying to establish my place. The discomfort is real, but maybe necessary? Only time will tell.
To be continued…
Girl with Dog 