Picked Last

I was not an athletic child.  There is a picture of me at age 10, standing at the start of a church picnic race.  I was wearing a red and white plaid shirt, red velour shorts pulled up nearly to my armpits, and flip flops.  But it was my posture – my totally nonathletic stance – that made me laugh.  And cringe.  And it became clear why I was often picked last in PE.

It took awhile for my muscles to catch up with my height, but by high school I wasn’t totally hopeless.  I was a mean shot in basketball and very good at table-tennis, though the memories of being picked last still remain.

Imagine my heartache when my daughter told me recently that she was picked last for a team.  It didn’t seem to bother her as it bothered me, but it made me wonder, again, why adults do this to kids.  It’s not like there’s only one way to balance teams.

I’m guessing most PE teachers or coaches were athletic as children and, as a result, were popular – thus never experiencing the agony of standing there, kicking at the dirt, trying to look as if you didn’t care as you waited to hear your name, knowing your team didn’t really want you but, rather, were stuck with you.

You’d think, with all the bullying awareness campaigns, adults who inflict this psychological pain upon children would realize that they are helping the bullies – essentially putting a target on the backs of those picked last.

And I have one thing to say about that.  Please stop.

The Greatest Love

I wasn’t planning to write another “Valentine” article, but the passing of Whitney Houston inspired me to do so.  She was one of the few artists whose music I could enjoy song after song.

The Greatest Love of All was my favourite.  She sang it beautifully and, while I believe “the greatest love of all” should actually be one’s love for God, not for oneself, learning to love ourselves is still a message worthy of attention.

One Valentine’s Day when I didn’t have a boyfriend, I bought myself a dozen roses.  Some of my friends said this was weird, but others agreed it was a great idea.  I thought it was perfectly normal to show love for myself by doing something that made me feel good.  I love flowers and I didn’t think I should have to wait for someone else to buy them for me.

Sometimes self love gets wound up in our promotions, our looks, our possessions, our friends, and our abilities.  We define our worth by our successes and failures – how our children behave, whether we were able to lose ten pounds, how many friends we have on Facebook, or whether we made partner by the time we were thirty.

Love of self can be a tricky thing.  While it should motivate us to want to be better, to look good, to develop talents, to aim for success, it shouldn’t be measured by those things.  It’s how we feel deep down, when we’re alone, and even if the career, money, possessions, and beauty were to disappear.

Our self relationships can be improved with effort.  Smiling when we pass a mirror no matter what our hair looks like, telling ourselves we’re terrific even on a hard day, buying flowers if we want them, and remembering to look upward as well as inward.