Team Gray!

Our star player’s mother kept repeating it would make us stronger. It will build our character. Blah, blah, blah. It still stinks to have a season as good as ours—-23-5, just to lose in the State Finals.

This is my daughter’s third trip to the State finals, and her third 2nd place trophy.

It is a little demoralizing, despite the fact that everybody ain’t able (to make it that far). Because if you are able, you should walk into your victory. Pardon my Christianese.

To listen to my daughter describe her team’s morale reminded me of the Israelites. When it came time for the Israelites to go and inhabit the land God had given them, they first wanted to pick some people to go and scout out the land. So they picked 12 scouts, one from each tribe of Israel. 10 out of 12 scouts were scared, and they convinced the rest of Israel that they couldn’t possess the land.

Only Caleb and Joshua spoke up and said that God would help them to take the land. Nobody believed them. As a result, that whole generation died in the wilderness.

Today, my daughter witnessed her team intimidated by their opponents. She told them, “We are evenly matched. We can take them.” Her teammates looked upside her head.

There were other issues in the games, like bogus fouls other unfair referee calls, but really, the team suffered from a lack of confidence.

So my daughter has a third second place trophy to ‘clutter up her desk.’

Maybe she can sell it on ebay.

Tonight was the first basketball banquet of the season. I know we have at least one more coming up; (we had three children in basketball this year, but will miss the end of our youngest player’s season).

I took all the children to the potluck, grumbling because I’d misread the email and had thought it was starting a half hour later than it actually did. I was also grumpy about having to do a potluck. Potlucks make me feel in competition with others in an area where I am really insecure. If people don’t eat the food I brought, isn’t that just reinforcing my perception that I can’t really cook?

Anyway, I was grumpy and complaining all the way to the banquet, driving a route I’d never tried before, because the street I usually take was closed off.

We got there, and the children my 9 year old likes to play with were there. She was happy to see them, and she and her little sister sat at their table for the prayer.

Rather than encourage everyone to belly up to the buffet at the same time, the athletic director called families up in alphabetical order. The two little girls my daughters were sitting with were at the beginning of the alphabet; we’re in the middle.

The two girls got their food and went to sit at a different table. My daughters were left at the table with their friend’s parents; our table was full.

I was angry. I wanted to do everything from shake the little girls to fussing at them, to cussing at them, to sticking out my tongue. Instead I told my daughters that they could be polite, but they could not chase after those girls. They were not to reward rude behavior like that.

I heard their friend’s mother, a friend of mine, ask my girls where the other girls were, and I heard her say, “why’d they do that?” I was too angry to speak to her about it.

The two girls returned to their table during the awards ceremony. They asked my 9 year old to join them. I wouldn’t let her. I played pencil games with her and her 5 year old brother. I saw my friend talk to her daughter, and the little girl came over to apologize. My oldest daughter had the 9 year old in her lap, and heard the apology. My 9 year old didn’t hear it at first. She stayed at our table. I told her she must forgive the girl if she’d apologized. After a while, she forgave the two girls and they all ran off to play together.

I kind of felt left holding the bag with all those negative emotions. But I knew that God is clear about forgiveness.

I had to practice that myself a couple of times tonight, and I was grateful I had. When have you had to swallow your emotions and forgive?

I don’t know what’s going on with the blog. As proud as I am of my daughter, I didn’t mean to post that last article 3 times. I can’t delete two of them to make it normal. So I’ve run away from my mess and cowered in the corner. There. I’ve said something about it. I’ve acknowledged it. I still can’t fix it.

In fact, this here is more of an experimental post than a real one. I don’t even know if anyone will read it. I better stop explaining and start getting interesting, hmmm?

How about I relate a couple cases of mistaken identity?

Today when I got to cardio tennis, a woman greeted me with, “Look who’s back!” I looked around to see who she was talking about. “How’s your hand?” she continued. Then the woman next to her said, “It’s not her!” She’d mistaken me for the woman who fell down on Tuesday. Now, I had worried that people were looking at me like a fat woman likely to fall down in tennis, but I certainly don’t look anything like the woman who fell. She is shorter than I am, has shorter hair, is noticeably fatter than I am, has different color eyes, wore completely different clothes. . .

The foot in mouth woman didn’t skip a beat. She proceeded to tell me about the woman falling on Tuesday and how she’d hurt her hand. I told her that I was there on Tuesday. . .

Later on, I took the children to their bi-weekly math games group. The woman who teaches the younger children in gym class pulled me aside to tell me that I’d joined halfway into the year, and she proceeded to explain the procedure for turning in the exercise sheets. I have been in the group all year, and have had conversations with this woman all year. She had mistaken me for another black woman, who had just joined. She is taller than I am, has completely different hair, darker eyes, dresses differently. . .

It hurts my feelings to think I have made no more impression on folks that they are confusing me with other people.

I let it go in the tennis class. Surely, even though she talked to me as though I hadn’t been there on Tuesday, the woman must have recognized my face enough to connect me with the injured woman, right?

And it was an innocent blunder in the math group, right? Surely she wasn’t suggesting that we all look alike?

My husband says that if people knew how much this hurt, they wouldn’t act that way. I’m thinking I must do something brash to differentiate myself. That’s probably not the right conclusion. What do you think? If you’re black, do you have this problem? If you’re not black, is that the only detail you notice about different people?