One thing I've learned in my short time as a coach's wife is that change is inevitable. I knew coming into this community that my husband wouldn't always be in one place forever.
What I didn't expect was how much I would fall in love with this life.
Sure, it has its disadvantages. We spend so many nights without our coach. Lots of long car rides to and from games. Concession stand dinners. Stinky locker rooms. Sideline coaches and biting my tongue.
But you fall in love with a community along the way. You fall in love with the community of women and families you do life side by side with. This life is so hard to do alone, and the relationships you build along the way help you get through the hard seasons.
You get to watch these players grow into young men. You see them at their lowest lows and their highest highs. You can't help but feel in some small way that they belong to your family.
So when you have to say goodbye there is a sort of grieving you go through.
Whether you are choosing to leave or not, your heart can't help but hurt. I've found myself feeling so many things. I'm not ready to say goodbye, but I know it's coming.
I'm still trying to process how to be in the middle of goodbye.
There was part of me that wanted to crawl into a hole and ignore it.
There was part of me that wanted to say I wish we would have fought harder to stay. I wish someone else would have fought harder for us to stay. The hurt and anger can eat at you if you let it.
But I've come to the realization that instead, we are going to cling to the good.
We will cling to those that we formed bonds with along the way.
Cling to the nights when our kids ate nothing but junk and got to run around on the field when the game was over.
Cling to those after-game hugs from your coach- win or lose.
Cling to the wins and losses and the growth you watched those players make.
Cling to the times you watch your coach do what he was meant to do and can't help but beam with pride.
Cling to the kids that your coach molded into the athletes they are today.
Cling to the relationships he built with them.
Cling to the nights they left it all on the field.
Cling to the family we built through long nights, car rides, loud kids, getting lost, and more laughs than you could ever imagine.
So, in the middle of this long goodbye, while I know I will have days of hurt, I'm clinging to the good and the community that we have fallen so madly in love with. And watch our coach soak up every minute of doing what he loves.