13 November, 2017

Friendships with sports-parents

Today I met a friend for coffee. Not an unusual thing for me to do at all. I mention it because this is one of our friends who I've usually met during the sporting seasons. Our kids have done wrestling and track and field together, which both mean long days in the stands. We've spent many, many hours sitting on hard benches together.
This is the friend I travelled and shared a room with in Korea in February. Because the track and field season finished in May it's been ages since we sat down together to chat, though we did go to the park with our families in August and I gave her a lift, along with six other women to the missionary women's event in October. When sport isn't "in season" we have to make an effort to make time to spend together, not easy because we're both busy with our respective roles.

We're both in the same life-stage. We've got three boys each and our eldest sons graduated in June. They're both headed off early in the new year to the next stage of their lives. It's nice to have a friend who's in the same life-stage. Rare, in fact, for me. I've been reflecting recently that many of the friends I see most regularly have kids who are younger than mine (even if only by a couple of years).

One of the challenging things about being associated with an international school community is that most people leave the community (either for a ministry located in a different part of Japan or they leave Japan altogether) after their last child finishes school. Of course I've got no idea how long we're going to be here, but there is a strong chance that David will continue to teach at CAJ after our youngest finishes. 

That's going to be strange—to go back to being just a staff-wife. To have no one of my own to cheer on at sports meets. To have no other parents that I see as part of the school calendar. I'm sure there'll be plenty to fill the gaps, but it will certainly be a different stage of life. One that's only five and a half years away! Maintaining friendships will definitely have to be stepped up to a more intentional activity, like today's "let's do coffee soon" morning.

These last couple of weeks there has been some tension for me about wrestling. Our middle son has decided not to do wrestling, after saying he would (in May). That leaves us without a high school wrestler in our family this year. 

Does it sound strange to admit that I've found that hard to accept? I really wanted to be supporting our high school wrestlers again as a parent . . . but it would be odd to go to all the meets and duals and I can't really justify those long days if I don't have a wrestler in the team. Our youngest is in the middle school team, so I'll get to go to his meets. I still plan to go to some of the high school meets (especially the one at CAJ in December and probably the finals). But it's taking some time to accept that we don't have a high schooler in the team this year. Part of that, too, is that I'll miss the time in the stands with friends who do have wrestlers this year, like the lady I had coffee with this morning. I'm not happy about that, but can do nothing about it. It does make me feel sorry for people whose children aren't into sports. They miss out on a lot!

Our eldest is helping out the coach, so he's still at school working with the team till after 6pm most nights. David's helping out as a responsible adult/staff member too (the coach's second son was born last week, so David helped supervise training last week). So I guess they'll both be going to meets, while I sit at home quietly with our middle son?

Alas, do I have a wrestling withdrawal?

But it's more than wrestling that I'll miss, it's the friendships formed with other parents that call me.

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