Kids These Days...

Dearest Amanda:

I must say, you and Mommy St. Martin rock the Maleficent horns magnificently! I've always wanted to visit Salem at this time of  year. Maybe we should make a Halloween trip and bring Greggers... you know he would be able to lament along with that waitress about the faux HP wand store. Probably could have taught her a thing or to along the way about what kinds of wands are best for magic making and all that.

I read your post shortly after you'd posted it (the beauty of smart phones and instant notifications) but this is the first time I've signed onto my computer in a while, so I've been slacking too. Since then, Bee and her girlfriend came to visit for Alumni weekend this past weekend, so naturally it was a weekend full of drinking, ridiculousness, and misplacement, both of people and items. Among them, Bee, who decided to take off for about a half hour to do God knows what, and my wallet... for the second time in three months.

When I realized it was missing two days after my final drunken purchase at Ali Baba's Kabob Shop (those damn veggie pakoras are the only thing that comes close to a Rise n' Shiner) I went to the bank to close my account, where I found that it had been slowly draining at random Shell stations around the Burlington area. Whoever ended up with my card was a professional thief, or watched a lot of crime shows, because there was never more than a 40 dollar charge at any of the five places they went. So, courtesy of Drunk Brooke, some dillhole got some free booze, cigs and tanks of gas on Sober Brooke's bank account. As a result, I've been trying to contact the claims center all morning to no avail. Sober Brooke always ends up with all of Drunk Brooke's consequences. That bitch has got some serious Karma coming her way.

Speaking of consequences and Karma, yesterday I get to the bus to get my team ready to leave for my game and I am approached by four of my players, three of whom are seniors and one a senior captain. Two had approached the head coach and myself the day before at practice and owned up to being at a party that got busted the previous Saturday evening. As a result, we gave them the consequence of sitting yesterday's game out in their street clothes and watching from the sidelines in addition to whatever the school's involvement would be after the message was relayed to the Athletic Director and Principal. The captains then approached us and told us that there was one other person at the party who had not come forward and asked us to give them until yesterday to try and convince them to do so. Turns out, that third person was my star midfielder who, other than my goalkeeper, carries the team.

Livid didn't even begin to cover it.

In addition, one of the captains came forward and said she was there, but supposedly "only to make my presence known to the teammates that were there." How truthful that is, I'm not sure, but in any case, we're down four of our key players for potentially the rest of the season. I was not impressed, to say the least.

When we got to the game yesterday, we stepped onto the field and I immediately pulled the whole team together. I made them stand shoulder to shoulder, which is our team tradition, in a circle, and the four under consequence did not include themselves. I did not say anything, but my team did, not with words but by each person opening up the circle a little more to allow all four to join in on the pregame ritual we'd established since day one. Shoulder to shoulder, we all stood, and I asked them all to close their eyes and visualize how good it felt to win. To score. To be a part of a team that, against all odds, has overcome the scrutiny and doubt of their entire community to become one of the top ranked teams in the division, to have a winning record for the first time in at least five years. I watched each person in the circle as I spoke, some tearful, some jittery, some looking back at me, uncomfortable to stand with their eyes closed for that long. I told them that the game ahead would be a true test of what it meant to be a Seahorse, because being a Seahorse meant more than the uniform or playing time or skill or anything else it took to actually be on the team.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, all the girls looked at me, and one asked "what does it mean?"

I smiled and told them "that's what you show me today."

We won. In overtime. 1-0 against the worst team in the league, a team we crushed on our first meeting 5-1. For me, this win was even sweeter, because it showed me that my team knows exactly what it means to be a Seahorse. Very, very impressed, to say the least.

As for Karma, it's still coming around on those four who made that choice. However, I'm hoping that spiteful bitch eases up a bit, since they were all brave enough to come forward and face their teammates. I have never been more disappointed and proud of anyone than I was of those four in my entire life. It was a very strange feeling that forced me to kill it with ice cream and pizza rolls when I got home. Is this what Parenthood feels like?

Kids these days, I tell you...

XO

Brooke