Project Happily Ever After

a.k.a.

The Karma Project, week 4

So, I must admit something, because some of you know this about me and some of you don’t. It’s this. I’m a wee bit competitive, and not in a good way. This is something I’ve known for a good long while, ever since I got into a fight with a friend over who should swim the anchor leg for a swim team relay.

You see, usually the anchor is the fastest person on a relay team. I thought I was fastest. She thought she was fastest. Actually, I think she said that I always got to swim anchor, and that it wasn’t fair. Anyway, we got in a fight about it. The coach intervened. My friend got the anchor leg. We lost, by a tiny little bit. After the race, I walked right up to her and told her it was her fault. If I’d been the anchor, we would have won.

And if you are thinking that the loss might have been my fault just as much as hers, because, after all, had I swum a few seconds faster on MY leg, she might have had a chance to stay ahead on her leg, all I can say is this: You are totally right.

I was an ugly sportswoman, even at the very young age of 8.

By the time I became an adult, I realized that competition turned me into a person I didn’t like. I didn’t enjoy being this person, so I stopped competing.

It’s been more than 10 years since I’ve competed in athletics. So when my husband, last week, asked me to take our daughter to her very first soccer game ever, I said, “Sure, why not.”

It never occurred to me that this was a very bad idea.

But it should have started occurring to me on the morning of her game. That’s when I became obsessed with getting our 5 year old to fuel up with a proper breakfast.

She wanted nothing to do with my Let’s Fuel Up Before Your First Soccer Game Breakfast, by the way. I got her to drink some juice and eat about four shredded mini wheats. I took her and her nearly empty stomach to soccer. During the first half hour of practice, I was a good mom. I just sat there and read a book, only occasionally glancing up to smile and yell, “Good job honey!”

Then, the game started.

The other team kicked off. Since none of the kids on my daughter’s team had ever played a game of soccer before in their young lives, they all stood in place, waiting to be told what to do. As the kids on the other team ran the ball down the field and made a goal, the kids on my daughter’s team watched them.

I think most of the other parents thought this was cute. They laughed and got a good kick out the adorableness of it all.

I, on the other hand, thought, “Why didn’t the coach tell the kids to run after the ball? What’s WRONG WITH HIM?! How are they going to protect the goal if he doesn’t tell them what to do?!”

It could have been worse. I could have said all of that out loud.

Even then—with these thoughts in my head–I had no idea that I was so going to the “She’s one of THOSE soccer moms” place.

At the next kick off, I yelled to my daughter at the top of my lungs, “Go get the ball! Go get the ball! Go get the ball!”

My daughter looked at me, processed the words, and got this look on her face that said, “Oh, so THAT’s what I’m supposed to be doing!” Yes, the others parents and the coach looked at me, too. But that’s beside the point.

My daughter ran right up to some little kid on the other team, stole the ball right out from in front of his tiny little feet, and ran said ball down the field and scored a goal.

I stood up. I clapped. I jumped up and down. I yelled, “I’m so proud of you!” Just think. My kid—a future professional soccer player!

Seriously, that’s what I thought in that moment. It’s just, well, I don’t even know the right word for it. Abnormal? Sick? Deluded?

Ah, let’s not contemplate what it is, okay?

I whipped out my cell phone, called my husband, and said, “You will NOT believe this. She’s really good at soccer! I mean she’s REALLY good. She just scored a goal! And she did it all by herself. Not even with an assist. I think she’s the best player on the team, even better than the boys!”

You must know something else to understand this story. It’s this. My husband is just as competitive as I am, only worse. And, unlike me, he doesn’t see this as a downfall. He smugly replied, “Yeah, I know. We’ve been practicing.”

Right about then, my daughter got the ball again and was making her way down field. I hung up on my husband so I could yell, “Gooooooooooooo!”

And it went like that for the rest of the game. I was the loudest parent there. I mentally critiqued the coach’s every move, especially when he neglected to explain to the kids that they’d switched sides and should now be trying to kick the ball into the goal on the other end of the field. When my daughter scored a goal for THE OTHER TEAM, I waved her over and explained the situation, because, you know, scoring a goal for the other team—when you are 5 years old—is just, well, I don’t know what. Funny? Tragic?

At the end of the game, I hugged her and told her how proud I was of her. You would have thought she’d just graduated from MIT or something.

As we walked back to the car, hand in hand, though, it started to dawn on me that I was THAT parent.

Even worse, the game set off a bad competitive streak. I became worse than THAT parent. Over the next few days, I became THAT blogger and THAT person. I found myself going to other blogger sites and checking their Alexa ranks, to see if various blogs were more popular than mine. I heard myself muttering things like, “No way does X have more traffic than I do! How can that be? I’m a much better blogger!”

Yeah, THAT person.

It was then, after becoming THAT person, that I started to get this sense that I was drifting without an anchor. I felt vacant. Empty. Ugly.

Not like myself.

And that’s when I realized just how great I’d felt until then. During the past few weeks, since the Karma Project began, I’ve felt nearly euphoric. Then I went to that blasted soccer game.

So I decided to try to fix my “I’m THAT Person” problem with Karma. I made a pact. Whenever I found myself feeling jealous—of another blogger, another writer, another human being of any sort? I would do an act of good Karma for that person. I might give that person a gift. I might help that person get a step closer to his or her goal. I might do that person a favor—and I don’t mean that as a sarcastic joke. It would be a true favor, something that the person would actually want me to do. With an enemy like me? Who needs friends? It was going to be like that.

And almost as soon as I pledged to do this? I started to feel grounded and centered again.

I haven’t quite figured out how to deal with the whole soccer issue, though. Cheer for the wrong team? Offer to practice with the other kids so they can score goals, too? Tell the other parents that I’m proud of their kids, too? Put duct tape over my mouth? Unsure. Thankfully, this week, I will avoid the whole thing altogether because I’ll be 5 states away at a conference.

My very competitive husband will be taking her to soccer instead.

But I can’t avoid soccer forever. I will eventually go back and be one of the parents on the sidelines.

How do I keep myself from being THAT parent and sinking into this bad competitive spiral again? I’m not sure, but I know I need to try, for my Karma’s sake, not to mention my daughter’s. Let me know if you have any thoughts on the matter.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 7:54 pm and is filed under Happiness advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.