Imagine it - school's finally out, and you think to yourself, "I'm going to be so productive! And tan! And relaxed! I'd better see if hubs has anything I need to plan around this summer for us to complete all our delayed projects, vacays, and fun adventures." And then he sends it to you—the Summer Football Program.
And it's not a petite little list he hands over. It feels like a 300-page novel you've been asked to edit and review… ok, ok, that's an exaggeration. But it is a complete page long and BELOW standard font size.
So you start plugging into your planner and your family's Google Calendar. You find conflicts with your kids' summer baseball and Coach's "early summer camp," and more conflicts with the kids' soccer and Coach's "late summer camp."
Ok, no big deal, you can handle those nights with conflicts. You're the crockpot queen, and takeout is always on the menu.
We will still get a couple of projects and a vacation in here somewhere. And yet, after everything's put in the calendar, you find the only week you have available for the vacation you dreamt about— after the kids' sports and football — is dead week.
Ok, cool, cool, COOL! It'll be hotter than the devil's butt crack, but you'll still be away, and it'll be great. But, remember, when you get back, official practice starts two days later, so you need to do all your back-to-school preparations before vacation … *insert mommy crazy eyes here* — you get the picture.
We just got through an entire summer in a paragraph. And suddenly, the projects got delayed again. The vacation was a sweaty mess with multiple (no pun intended) meltdowns. The solo mom nights for two weeks straight on two separate occasions meant more takeout and crying into pints of ice cream than you would care to admit.
AND. SEASON. HASN'T. EVEN. STARTED.
For me, the anticipation nearly kills me right before the season starts every single year. All I want to do is SEE the fruits of my husband's labor. SEE that the sacrifices our family makes are worth it. SEE those boys becoming young men.
That first game every year is typically a huge sigh of relief. Of course, I get burnt out by the end of the season, as is expected, but playoffs keep us all sane!
It's the endless work that goes into a football program in the off-season that no one sees, that no one understands, and no one appreciates, except us coaches' families, that makes me detest that anticipation of the beginning of the season more.
You can find us, the coaches' families, breathing a collective sigh of released tension at that first Friday night under the lights. We hold our breath as the national anthem plays, the lineups are announced, and our boys hit the field for the first time in nearly a year.
We wonder if all the sacrifice will have been worth it. The moment we see our coach fulfilling the ministry bestowed upon them reminds us why we are here. And I know there's no greater feeling than that.