I’ve never pretended to be stronger than I am, so I’m sure as hell not going to pretend I’m weaker than I am. I’m also going to quit requiring modesty from other women. I don’t want to find comfort in the weakness and pain of other women. I want to find inspiration in the joy and success of other women. Because that makes me happier, and because if we keep disliking and tearing down strong women instead of loving them, supporting them, and voting for them, we won’t have any strong women left.
When I see a joyful, confident woman moving through the world with swagger, I’m going to forgive myself for my first reaction because it’s not my fault, it’s just my conditioning.
First reaction: Who the hell does she think she is?
Second reaction: She knows she’s a goddamn cheetah. Halle-fucking-lujah.
I’ve always judged harshly my parenting generation’s obsession with their kids’ sports. I’ve pitied the parents who spend their weekends and paychecks carting their kids all over the country to watch them kick balls or do handsprings. Each time a friend tells me about the scholarship her kid got to college, I say, “That’s wonderful!” and I think: But didn’t you spend at least that much on leotards and shin guards and hotels? For a very long while, my athletic goal for my children was mediocrity. I wanted them to learn enough about sports to avoid embarrassing themselves in gym class but not enough to become talented and ruin my weekends.
When the girls were young, they wanted to try gymnastics, so we drove to the local gym once a week and they rolled around and pointed their toes while I read and periodically looked up to yell, “Nice, honey!” This was a perfect scenario until the coach approached me after practice and said, “Your girls show real promise. It’s time for them to start coming three times a week.” I looked at her, smiled, thanked her, and thought: Time for a new sport! The following week, we joined the soccer house league. The girls had fun, and since there was zero pressure or real learning, I felt confident that we could continue to meet our mediocrity goal.
After the divorce, Tish began to fade. I watched her slowly retreat into food for comfort and spend more and more time alone in her room. I knew she needed to move her body more, but I also know, from personal experience, that suggesting this to a child will backfire. Tish was ten. I was ten when I fell into bulimia. My baby looked like she was teetering—right on the edge of falling. I was afraid.
I sat on the couch with Abby one night and said, “I think we need to get her back into therapy.”
Abby said, “I disagree. I think she needs to get out of her head, not deeper into it. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I want Tish to try out for an elite travel soccer team.”
ME: I’m sorry. What did you just say? Have you met Tish? That child would not run if the house were on fire. And those travel girls have been playing since birth. No, thank you. We are trying to help her, not humiliate her.
ABBY: I’ve got a hunch here. She’s a natural leader. She gets this spark in her eye when we talk about soccer. I think she might love it.
ME: No chance. She’s way too fragile right now. What if she doesn’t make it and it breaks her?
ABBY: What if she makes it and it makes her?
Behind my back, Abby called Craig, a lifelong soccer player, and it quickly became two against one. The plan was to approach Tish and ask if she’d like to try out for an elite travel soccer team against my will and better mama judgment. One day after school all three of us sat Tish down.
She froze and looked warily at us. After a divorce, kids are in fight-or-flight mode for a long while. She asked, “What happened? More bad news?”
Craig said, “No. No more bad news. We’re wondering if you’d be interested in trying out for a travel soccer team.”
Tish giggled. We didn’t giggle with her, so she stopped. She looked at Craig, then me. Then her eyes locked on Abby.
TISH: Wait. Are you serious?
ABBY: Yes.
TISH: Do you think I could actually make it?
I opened my mouth to say, “Well, honey, the truth is that these girls have been playing much longer than you have and don’t forget that just trying out is so brave and we will not focus on outcome, just our input…”
But before I could speak Abby looked Tish dead in the eyes and said, “Yes. I believe you could make it. You have potential and passion. Somebody’s got to make it. Why not you?”
Oh my God, I thought. She is reckless. She has no fucking idea what she is doing.
Without taking her eyes off Abby, Tish said, “Okay. I’ll try.”
“Awesome,” Craig said.
“Cool,” Abby said.
DANGER AHEAD, I thought.
We three smiled at Tish.
Tryouts were four weeks away. Tish, Abby, and Craig spent those weeks at the elementary school practicing shooting and in our living room watching old Women’s National Team games. Abby and Craig traded texts and emails about training strategy. Tish and Abby talked about the game so incessantly that Soccer became the official second language of our home. They also went for runs together each day, which never went smoothly. Tish complained and cried the whole way through. One afternoon they walked into the foyer together, sweating and panting. Tish continued her run right up the stairs, stomping the entire way. Before she slammed the door to her room she screamed, “I CAN’T DO IT! I HATE IT! I CAN’T DO THIS!”
I froze and began to consider what medications we might prescribe Tish after this dangerous experiment failed and we had officially ruined her life. Again.
Abby turned me toward her and looked into my eyes. “It’s fine,” she said. She pointed upstairs. “That? That’s exactly right. Don’t go up there. She’ll be down in a bit.”
Tish came downstairs in a bit, red-eyed and quiet. She sat on the couch between Abby and me. We watched TV for a while, and during a commercial break Abby said, without taking her eyes off the TV, “I hated running every single day of my career. I cried about it all the time. I did it because I knew I couldn’t be great if I wasn’t fit, but I freaking hated every minute of it.”
Tish nodded and asked, “When are we running tomorrow?”
* * *
The weeks pass, and now we are driving Tish to her first day of tryouts. I have both my hands wrapped around a gigantic travel mug filled with stress-relief tea. When we arrive at the fields, all the other girls are in their shiny travel uniforms and Tish is in a summer camp T-shirt and PE shorts. She is also at least a foot shorter than all of the other girls. When I point this out to Abby, she says, “What? No, she’s not. Babe, when it comes to Tish, you’ve got some kind of projected body dysmorphia. Look closely, she’s as tall as the rest of them.” I squint and say, “Hm. Well she’s littler inside.” Abby says, “No, she’s not, Glennon. No. She’s not.”
Tish, Abby, Craig, and I huddle up. Tish looks at me, and her eyes are watery. I hold my breath. Abby looks at me and widens her eyes. I want to say, “Baby, let’s forget about all of this. Mommy’s got you. Let’s get back in that car and go get some ice cream.” Instead I say, “I believe in you, Tish. This is a hard thing to do. We can do hard things.”
She turns away from us and begins to move slowly toward the field. I watch her walk away from me and toward this very, very hard thing and never in my life has my heart traveled so far up my throat. She looks so small, and the sky, field, and task ahead of her are so big. She keeps walking, though, away from us, toward the sideline bench where the other girls are sitting. As soon as she makes it to the bench, she and we realize: Oh my God. Oh my God—there is no room left on the bench for her. She stands awkwardly off to the side. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands. She is on the fringe. She is outside the Golden circle. She does not belong. She is not one of them.
Abby grabs my hand. “You okay?”
ME: No. This is a mistake.
ABBY: This is not a mistake.
I grab my hand back and pray: Please, God, if you exist, make them be nice to my daughter. Make them invite her into the circle. Make the ball go into the goal every time she touches it or just create some other kind of soccer miracle so she’ll somehow make this team. If all else fails, send an earthquake. But please, God, let this be over soon, because my heart cannot take this.
Tryouts begin. Tish doesn’t seem to know what she’s doing. She loses the ball often. She isn’t as quick as the other girls. She looks over at Abby several times, and Abby smiles and nods at her. Tish keeps trying. She has a few good moments. She can complete a pass, and Abby insists that she has some kind of vision of the field, an understanding of the game that seems to exceed the other girls’ vision. But the hour is tough on her. And me. After it’s over, we walk to the car together and climb in. Tish is quiet the whole way home. After a while I turn around and say, “Baby?”
Abby puts her hand on mine and shakes her head no. I turn back around and stay quiet the rest of the way home.
We go back to tryouts the next day. And the next. We go back every night for a week. On Friday night, we get an email from the coach. It says, “She’s got a lot to learn. But she’s got a spark and she’s a hard worker and a leader. We need that. We’d like to offer Tish a spot on our team.”
I cover my mouth and reread the email twice to make sure I’m understanding it correctly. Abby is doing the same thing silently over my shoulder. I turn around to her and say, “Holy. Shit. How did you know?”
Abby has tears in her eyes. She says, “I didn’t know. I haven’t slept through the night for three weeks.”
Craig, Abby, and I sit Tish down and tell her together.
“You made it,” we say. “You made the team.”
* * *
It’s been a few years since those tryouts, and now we are parents who spend our weekends carting our child all over the state and spend our money on gas and hotels and tournaments and cleats.
Tish is strong and solid now, not because she wants to be a model, but because she wants to be the best athlete and teammate she can be. The stronger she is, the more her team can count on her. Tish does not consider her body an end in itself, but a means to an end. She uses her body as a tool to help her achieve a goal her mind and heart have set: Win games with my friends.
Tish is a leader now. She has learned that there are great athletes and there are great teammates, and they are not always the same people. She watches her teammates, and she decides exactly what each needs. She knows who is hurting and who needs encouragement. After every game, win or lose, she sits in the back seat on the drive home and sends her teammates messages: “It’s okay, Livvie. Nobody could have stopped that ball. We’ll get them next time. We love you.” The girls’ parents write me emails saying, “Please thank Tish for me. She was the only one who could console my girl.”
Tish is an athlete now. When drama hits at middle school, it doesn’t shake her badly because those hallways are not where she finds her identity. She doesn’t need to manufacture false drama in her social life because she has all the real drama—the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat—on the pitch. The other day I heard her say this to a friend of Chase’s: “Nah, I’m not popular. I’m a soccer player.”
Soccer saved my daughter.
The fact that I didn’t save my daughter from soccer saved my daughter.
* * *
Recently, Craig, Abby, and I sat on the sidelines in the cold, pouring rain and watched Tish’s team play. The girls were soaking and freezing and somehow showed zero signs of being either one. I watched Tish closely, as always. Her legs and face were both chiseled. Her hot-pink pre-wrap headband held back strays from her signature ponytail. The other team had just scored, and she was trying to catch her breath and get back into position. As she ran, she called back to her defenders, “Let’s go. We’ve got this!” Play resumed. The ball came to Tish. She trapped the ball and passed it to her forward, Anais. Anais scored.
The girls ran toward Anais, toward each other. They all met in the center of the field, a mass of tween girls leaping and hugging and celebrating each other, their team, their sweat. We parents cheered, too, but the girls didn’t hear us. In that moment, there was no one else on Earth but them. How we felt about them didn’t matter. How they felt was what mattered. For them, it was not a performance. It was real.
The game ended, and Abby, Craig, and I walked to our cars, parked side by side. We all climbed inside to get out of the rain. After a quick team huddle, Tish walked toward us with her friend Syd. They were not hurrying, because they didn’t even feel the cold. When they got to us, they hugged, and Syd walked off with her mom. Tish came over and stood outside Abby’s window to say good-bye because she was going home with Craig. It’s still tough, all this back-and-forth between houses. Divorce is hard to navigate—all families are hard to navigate—but Tish knows that she can do hard things.
The rain continued to fall around her, but Tish’s face was a floodlight framed by the window.
She said, “Coach Mel gave me a nickname today. She says she’s going to call me Elmer’s because the ball sticks to me like glue. When she called me off the bench today, she yelled, ‘Elmer’s—you’re in.’ ”
Craig’s window was open, and he heard her story. He smiled over at me and Abby. We smiled back. Tish just stood there between us—glowing and gluing.
When Abby and I first fell in love, we had hundreds of miles and a million obstacles keeping us apart. The facts laid out in front of us made a future together seem impossible. So we’d tell each other about the true and beautiful unseen order we felt pressing through our skin. Our imaginings always included each other and the water.
Abby wrote this to me from the other coast, one evening before she fell asleep:
“It’s early in the morning and I’m sitting on our dock watching the sunrise. I look and see you in your pajamas, still sleepy, walking toward me, holding two mugs of coffee. We just sit there on the dock together, my back against the piling, your back against my chest, watching the fish jump and the sun rise. We have nowhere to be but together.”
The harder things became, the more often we’d return to that morning Abby had imagined for us. That dock, her, me, two steaming mugs of coffee: That image became our unseen order, guiding us forward. We had faith.
A year later, Abby made dinner for the six of us: the kids, Craig, and me. We all sat down to eat on the back porch of the home off the Gulf of Mexico that Abby and I bought together. It was a gorgeous evening, the sky all purples and oranges and the breeze steady and warm. We ate and laughed and then cleared the table together. Craig left for his Sunday-evening soccer game, and the kids finished the dishes and then sat down on the couch to watch a show. Honey, our bulldog, snuggled up on Amma’s lap, and Abby walked outside to our dock: the Doyle Melton Wamdock. I watched from inside as she sat down with her back against a piling and looked out at the canal. I poured two hot teas and walked out to join her. She looked back toward me, and by her smile, I knew she was remembering. We sat on the dock together, my back against her chest, her back against the piling, and we watched the fish jump while the sun set and the sky celebrated in deeper and deeper purples.
Before we went back inside, I snapped a picture of us, smiling with the sun setting behind us, and later I posted it. Someone commented, “Gah. You’re so lucky to have each other and this life.”
I replied, “It’s true. We are terribly lucky. It is also true that we imagined this life before it existed and then we each gave up everything for the one-in-a-million chance that we might be able to build it together. We did not fall into this world we have now, we made it. I’ll tell you this: The braver I am, the luckier I get.”
I used to hate romantic movies. When they came on the television, I’d feel achy, like I was looking at pictures of a party
I hadn’t been invited to. I’d remind myself that romantic love is just Disney bullshit, but I’d always feel a yearning right before changing the channel.
Like the yearning that Abby, who is agnostic, feels when she watches a church choir with their robes and deep voices and shiny eyes.
I’ve always had shiny eyes about divine love; I’m a believer.
Abby has always had shiny eyes about romantic love; she’s a believer.
Abby’s favorite movies are Romeo + Juliet and The Notebook. The NOTEBOOK. When I say to her, “I cannot believe we found each other,” she says, “I can. I knew you were out there the whole time.”
I didn’t know. I didn’t know about romantic love because I didn’t fall in love until I was forty years old. There I was, just walking down the street of my life, when I fell into a rabbit hole. This is why they call it falling in love, because there is suddenly no solid ground beneath you anymore.
When I fell in love, I felt a lot like I did when I ate hallucinogenic mushrooms with my friends in college. When the mushrooms kicked in, we’d fall into the rabbit hole together. Suddenly I’d feel utterly connected to the people I was tripping with and equally disconnected from everyone sober. My friends and I were in a bubble of love, and no one else could reach us or understand us. I felt sorry for the sober people. They didn’t know what we knew or feel what we felt or love like we loved. We called them the normal people. “Be careful,” we’d whisper to each other when one of them would approach. “She’s normal.”
For a long while, that was how I felt about everyone who was not me and Abby. I’d look at folks walking down the street and think: They don’t even know. We are special, and they are so…normal. The only normal person I could even speak to during those early days was my sister. She talked to me back then exactly like she’d talked to me when I was a drunk. She’d cock her head to the side and say things like “Be careful, Sissy. You don’t really know what you’re doing right now.”
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