Experience slips away...

The best thing of all that has happened to us since we've moved to Vitoria is Doe has been accepted to start training with a competitive league girl's soccer team here in town. Avoiding all identification, the team is a second-tier team with girls ranging in age from 16-18-- and from Doe's accounts-- is very good. She has only been to three practices and came home last night a little disheartened and discouraged. The team played well, she said, but she didn't think she did.

I could care less how she performs, although I think it impossible not to improve one's skill set by practicing in a league that is 'better' than you feel you are. She feels challenged and insecure about her ability, but that is not really what it is all about. Very few teenaged girls would go on their own into a locker room where no one speaks English, no one knows you, and everyone else knows each other and has played together for years. I think in this regard it might be easier for a boy to do something like this; for girls team sports is much more about the personal connection and the friendship gained. Which is not a bad thing. But she was very nervous before the first practice, and you could almost see the strain in her face. She was the most nervous I think I have ever seen her. 

The team had been extraordinarily welcoming though to her. When the coach said "We have a girl from America training with us!" the team rushed up to her and each gave her kisses on the cheek, per European custom. And one of the girls had a teammate take a picture and has posted it on her Facebook Wall. It was a very sweet gesture on her part. 

So I am proud of her for making this leap of self-confidence. No matter what the spring season may hold for at her high school's soccer team tryouts, the girls has done something no one else on her team has attempted. She practiced with an international team and made friends with girls whom she had never met before. 

A few of the girls have already taken her under their wing. They are picking her up this week at our apartment and riding the tram into town with her to go shopping. I am understandably a little nervous, but I know she is really excited about getting out with kids her own age. And when they found out her birthday is coming up, one of them said "Ahhhh! PARTY!" and they started gabbling about how they needed to host a party for her. 

As I said earlier in a post, expectations are difficult. I was a little sad for Doe this weekend seeing as all of her friends were posting pictures on Facebook of their dance pictures and all of the group shots of her friends together getting dressed up and going to the dance. I was glad that we were able to go to Galicia on Sunday. It's no formal dance with all of the rhinestones and glittery eye shadow and beautiful hair, but it was an exhilarating experience for her anyway. Swimming in an underwater cave held its own thrills. Giving up a semester in high school may not seem like a lot from our perspective, but as we enter our first month of time spent overseas, it has become utterly real to me. Time really does fly. And maybe soon we will want it to slow down...

Summers going fast nights growing colder
Children growing up old friends getting older
Freeze this moment a bit little longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away

Proud of you, Doe...

And P.S.---a wonderful Happy Birthday to my dearest and oldest friend, Pepper. Here's to 35 more years of friendship. I love you.