Themes of my life.

I don't know if things really happen "for a reason" but certainly everything in our lives can be a lesson if we take the opportunity.

I woke up this morning (Saturday) at 6:15, my weekday wake up time if I have no morning practice. I couldn't get back to sleep. My thoughts were not racing but pressing. The last three weeks have been ...... I don't know the word but I think I might overuse the word remarkable in this entry. So much of it ties together into one coherent lesson. I've spent the morning reflecting on it all. It was emotional and tearful but almost entirely uplifting.

After practice last night, I went to dinner with Peter and we had a singularly ..... conversation, or I should say, set of conversations. We talked about our lowest lows and our highest highs and everything in between. He said a few things that had a massive impact on me. One comment was about the positive people in his life, another two were actually about my life. It's remarkable how similar our lows and highs are. In fact, it made it difficult to distinguish sometimes when we were talking about him and when we were talking about me.

Peter has been blown away and yet buoyed by the people who have come out of the woodwork to support him during this crisis. I guess I'm one of them. I told him that this was a testament to him, although I know that he sees that. I remember saying the same thing to Kevin once. Not about a crisis but just in general about like seeking like. If you have great respect for the people who choose to make you part of their lives, that must reflect positively on you.

And despite the fact I was really trying to be there to support him, Peter was reflecting deeply on my experiences that I related to him. With all the things he has to think about in his own life! Peter made some insightful and respectful comments about my parents. I had mentioned that Dion and I do want to start having children soon. There was a short pause in the conversation while we actually ate and after the pause Peter stayed on that topic. He said that he was really happy to hear that we would someday be parents. It was so geniune. It's one of the purest compliments I've had in my life.

This conversation has me thinking about the people in my life. How it reflects well on me that they are in my life. The people who were there for me when I was having hard times. If my life were a novel, it would hinge on the characters, both major and minor.

Those of you who know of the craziness of my childhood and adolescence will not be surprised that one of my greatest fears has been social and emotional dependence. I was the strong one. That was my identity. I got a lot of positive reinforcement for it. I wasn't old or mature enough to recognise or to have meaningful peer support. I learned to depend on number one because everyone around had just enough strength to keep themselves together. It was a very effective coping strategy for dealing with adversity, which is another theme of this entry.

In my early twenties, I came to understand the error of being an island. Not only could I trust people, but to do so was the surest path to a rich life. At the time, I called it giving myself permission to experience the full range of life's experiences and emotions. It was really about permission to shed the role of the strong one. To be vulnerable is to be strong.

There was a meta-reflection in my morning's introspection. Mentally, I listed the people I would like to talk to about my meditation. There are so many people I can turn to. It made me feel proud to have these positive people in my life. Trust me, I have my insecurities, but I'm not going to write too much about them today. It's too easy to focus on the bad instead of the good.

The one thing I've always known is that the true measure of a relationship is how you feel about yourself because of the other person. Many people have made me feel good about myself in profound but subtle ways. I bet many of them don't even know it or what it was they did… small comments that have stuck. Usually, it comes down to a compliment on my character from someone I respect. Peter, Rob Ho, Kern, Dan Vranesic, and Mr. Gledhill have made some of those comments.

Those of you who have been reading my blog recently will know that coaching has been a theme of the last few weeks of my life. Naturally, I've been thinking about my own coaches. I catch myself consciously and unconsciously modelling myself after Kristine Drakich. It makes me proud. Kristine Drakich was my volleyball coach at U of T and one of the biggest influences in my adult life. I admire her accomplishments and character tremendously, which makes it so powerful that she let me (and all of her athletes) know that she valued us. Not just as competitors but also as complex, flawed, whole human beings. She told me once that one of the things she recognised and valued in me was my ability to deal with adversity. I certainly had a lot of practice with it in my youth. One Christmas, Kristine bought a little porcelain angel for each of us and wrote a small note on its tag. She wrote that I should be proud of my development as a player and that I would some day be an excellent coach. For that to come from her was another of the purest compliments I'll ever receive.

I've always felt lucky in my life… born in Canada, healthy, satisfying careers (including being a student), middle class privilege, good friends, Dion. Dion's dad always says that you've got to be good to be lucky. I wonder what it means to be good at life. I think that dealing well with adversity is a big part of it. I hope I can teach that to some of my students and athletes.

Yesterday, one of my students was visibly upset when I returned her test. This is a kid who has it going on. She is very intelligent, hardworking, considerate, chooses excellent friends. She did fine, very well even. But she was almost inconsolable. I led her to my office across the hall so that she could regroup in privacy. She wasn't upset about the marks although lots of kids, especially Grade 12s, are. She was upset because she made so many mistakes on the easy things. Her identity is draped in being perfect. That will sound familiar to some of you. She's got it going on but there is one thing missing - dealing well with adversity.

I need a transition paragraph here but I'm worn out. Let's skip to the end.

When I was about 10, I couldn't sleep one night. I was thinking about mortality. Death is another theme in my life's novel. My mother consoled me that night and taught me about her thoughts on the meaning of life. She told me that when you die, there's nothing left of you on Earth except the effect you've had on other people. Almost everyone in my life has had a positive effect on me. I owe many people thanks for it.