Through a series of unfortunate events, I found myself with a lot of free time for the foreseeable future. I took the first couple hours to be hysterical and then I cut myself off and decided to be productive. I like fixing things, controlling my situations. It also helped that an old coworker who'd recently come back into my life was going to be busy and couldn't help his friend at a lacrosse tournament like he usually did. The friend needed warm bodies and I needed to get out of town for a couple days. I didn't even contemplate spending 36 straight hours with someone I'd never met before; I agreed to it thoughtlessly and recklessly.
It was one of the best weekends of my life. That was the first lesson. Agree to try things (as long as it seems like you'll come back alive). I have to remind myself of that quite often since I have a tendency to find something I like and quit exploring past that. One awesome dish on a menu? Good enough! Now I never have to risk trying something I won't like. If I didn't step outside that comfort zone though, I wouldn't know I like oysters on the half shell, taro bubble tea, or spending my whole weekend working at tournaments with interesting little kids running around. Always take up that new experience. Especially bubble tea.
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The second is to let people show you kindness. It seems stupid but that was a hard concept for me through the teenage years. Some people will hurt you, but most just want to be nice. Thank you to Zach for being kind to me during an unexpectedly rough few days. Thank you for taking a chance on me, being patient when I had to restring the first head of Sunday, and for not laughing too hard when I got sick in the heat. This guy is both incredibly generous and genuine and I'm so glad I got to meet him.
Take care of yourself, especially in the heat. It's easy to forget you haven't drank anything in a few hours or that you're sweating it out faster than you're replacing it. You do no one any good if you're passed out or throwing up and it doesn't look good for business if someone has to be taken out on a stretcher.
Eat the funnel cake. Seriously. Maybe not every day but if you want it and it's been three years since the last one, it won't ruin your diet. You have weeks to hit the treadmill after for damage control but you have to treat yourself occasionally or all that hard work seems like it's for no reason. Everyone knows tournament food is notoriously unhealthy and unless you bring protein bars and apples with you, you're basically agreeing to survive on junk food for the afternoon. So we pigged out on cheese steak and funnel cakes and it was beautiful. Besides, everyone loves funnel cake and it was a great feeling to share it with the other people in the tent. It also looks better on their hips.
Enjoy the company of those around you. You may as well if you're getting up before sunrise to drive two hours, work with them for 10, and then share a hotel room before doing it all again the next day.
Also appreciate what others do for you. The guy I'm dating gave up his weekend to come along on my crazy adventure (mostly because he doesn't trust my driving), which was great since it meant I didn't have to drive. It doesn't hurt that we're both into lacrosse, but he did it to make me happy. Plus, he is amenable, something he's instinctively better at than me.
He didn't complain about waking up right after 4 AM, also unlike me, and was very tolerant of my morning grumpiness. He even lets me pick the playlist and sometimes the radio station and I'm grateful that I don't have to smack his hand every 20 minutes. I also appreciated that my friend Nathan, who was there coaching, dragged himself out Saturday night to socialize with us despite also being exhausted from the heat. We don't get to see each very often as we live an hour and a half apart, but it meant the world to me that he did it. People who care make time for you. There's a bonus lesson.
The eighth is be open to learning from other people. I worked at a lacrosse store last year and already knew how to string, but I learned a new kind of knot this weekend and yet another way to do the bottom lace. One of the other guys that dropped by to help, Jack, may be a... bit younger than me but the guy is a veritable fountain of knowledge when it comes to unique ways to string a stick. As far as stringing buddies go, and I've had quite a few, he's very pleasant to be around and it would have been a huge mistake to discount his talent due to his youth (and baby face).
Speaking of youth, kids are weird, especially when in packs, and by packs, I mean teams. Give them a uniform and they turn into similarly marked, babbling monkeys. But they're also really funny and if you wait about 10 minutes, they'll do stupid things on camera or drag their friends across the grass.
They're excited about getting new equipment, and hopefully deodorant because some of them really need that and to air out the equipment they already have. Their faces glow as they con money out of their parents. Some even have their own wallets, which they proudly whip open to hand cash to you in exchange for having a stick restrung. You can see them bursting at the seams to get their stick back to check out the new pocket and they bubble out thank you's as they dash off. Their parents also seem to have no clue where they are half the time.
But the last and most important lesson is about the future of both the sport and the industry. Out of the hundreds of children we saw in two days, elementary to high school, only one was brave enough to venture into our booth and ask to learn from us. We gave him a shirt while he "interned" and let him hang around us, watching us string and answering his questions about different heads. We forget how cool we are to these kids because we're older and seem to know so much.
They just want our attention, to be noticed and told they're on the right path. They need to be taught so that they can string and sell gear when most of us age out of it and leave the industry to pursue regular jobs that pay the rent more steadily. So thank you to some little guy out there named Ben who reminded me that I was once an awestruck kiddo. You'll probably never read this because you're too young to be surfing the web (now I sound old), but you're awesome and you're going to be great someday if you keep working at it. Also tell your mom and dad where you're going before you wander off.
