Nationals

I'm at the National Forensics League Tournament with my daughter and six other freshmen-to-be.  We're here with a few kids from our high school and two coaches.  The high schoolers have already begun competing.  This afternoon, they'll learn if they've made the first cut from around 400 competitors per event to the sixty continuing on.  Tomorrow, the middle school competition begins, and so, our fun hang-out-a-little-and-work-a-little pace will shift.  Adrenaline will begin to pump.  The drama will commence, literally, figuratively.

Today in this calm before the storm, I ruminate on my own Nationals story, one perhaps better described as a non-Nationals story.  A story I have told few people, because really it's not that interesting to anyone but me.  I am tempted tell my story to people here, because here causes me to remember, but this is not the place for telling.  Now is not my story.

Still, it's a story that has shaped me.  One that bubbles up in my consciousness from time to time accompanied not so much by sadness, regret or bitterness, but more by bewilderment.  We all have these stories, stories we seldom tell but that make us who we are.  Occasionally, we take them out, turn them over in our minds, examining the many facets, ruminating.

____________
I participated in a number of high school activities, but Debate and Forensics were my passion.  I was pretty good, so the passion was not misplaced. Though I dabbled in a variety of forensics events, Original Oratory (a ten-minute persuasive speech) was my favorite.  I did well in this event.

As a sophomore, I placed third in our region's national qualifying tournament.  The top two advance to nationals.  To have done so well at this age was impressive at the time, and it felt like a promise of great potential.  One day, I would undoubtedly be competing in Nationals.  That seemed certain.

The next year, I encountered controversy early in the season.  While preparing to write my oratory, I had flipped through several old Vital Speeches magazines seeking topic ideas and I had chosen as a springboard a speech about fear of failure.  Because the speech was from several years earlier, I was surprised to discover at one of the season's first tournaments that a competitor from another school had consulted the very same article.  In fact, she had not only consulted the magazine, she had plagiarized almost the entire speech.  (Interesting that she chose to plagiarize a speech about fear of failure.)

I told my forensics coach, but as far as I know, he did nothing.  The girl attended the school where he had just worked as an assistant coach before taking the head coaching position at my school.  I'm sure it was complicated for him.  Perhaps he did say something and the coach at her school did nothing.  Either way, she continued to compete with an unchanged speech throughout the season. 

She was a good speaker.  I was a good speaker.  Because we had the same topic, when we competed head-to-head, the person who delivered her speech first usually fared better.  We traded victories back and forth throughout the season.

At the national qualifying tournament, our duplicate speeches became problematic.  When she spoke in a round before me, she got the better score, and vice versa.  The stakes were higher now, though, so I mentioned it to my coach again.  An investigation followed.  Ultimately, she was disqualified from the tournament.

Even so, the damage was done.  I place third in the tournament.  Again.

The  next year the pressure was on.  The season proved promising.  The national qualifying tournament proved promising.

In the finals round -- the round determining who would proceed to Nationals -- one of my three judges was the coach of the competitor I had outed the previous year.

I placed fourth.

____________
Here I am now, at the destination I so deeply aspired to all those years ago.  I've learned it's slightly easier to qualify in high school now.  The top three rather than the top two places go to Nationals.  Had this been the case back in the day, I would have gone as a sophomore and junior.  If that had occurred, would my life be much different than today?  Would I have chosen a different college, career, path?

I am here with my daughter, who is quite good.  I say this as a mom, of course, but also as a reporter of what many other people have said.  Nevertheless, I am throwing her to the wolves tomorrow when she competes in the middle school tournament.

She will perhaps learn that though these events have judges, justice is not guaranteed.  She might also learn that what others say is true -- she is indeed a gifted young woman.  Or she might have the chance to begin to learn that she is not what she does.  That accolades and accomplishments and awards are nice, but she is so much more than these things. That there are lovely portions of her that cannot be rewarded and often are not even recognized, except by those who can truly see.  Some that only God sees.

And I, her mom, am glad I am here.  Though it dredges up past disappointments and lessons, perhaps because it does so.  I am glad to be here while she lives her own story, regardless of the outcome.  Ready with a mom-hug either way.

The Monster at the End of this Book

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was...

As you can see, it stars lovable, furry Grover from Sesame Street.  Grover has discovered, thanks to the book title, that there is a monster at the end of this very book, and he is downright worried about that.  Page after page, he warns the reader not to turn to the next page. 


As a child, I did not cooperate with his entreaties.  I turned each page gleefully.  Apparently, I was not the only one.


With each new page turn, Grover becomes increasingly insistent, panicked even.  He begs and pleads.  He attempts to tie down the pages with ropes and then with hammers, nails and 2x4's.  He erects a brick wall.  Each consecutive page shows the destruction created as the prior page bursts free from Grover's security measures.


Finally, on the penultimate page, a forlorn Grover makes one final desperate plea.

And yet, I turned the page.  You would have too, I bet.


At the end of the book, there is indeed a monster.  That monster is Grover.




I've thought about this book from time to time over the years, wondering if it is still in print.  


Yesterday, while grocery shopping, when I passed by the book and magazine section, there it was, The Monster at the End of this Book, right there front and center on the rack.


The timing of this discovery was interesting.  I had just received a big blow of bad news.  Nothing earth shattering, thankfully, but the type of lousy news that plays on old insecurities, pains, patterns.  The kind that causes me to doubt myself and God's goodness, that certainly makes me doubt the goodness of those around me.  


The past six months have been challenging and the past month more so.  Yesterday was just the proverbial straw on the camel.  Whether I've liked it or not, circumstances of late have pushed me to dig deep, to reevaluate my life choices, to consider what I want to be about at this point in my life, what God wants me to be about now.  I suppose the early forties is a good age for this sort of thing.


And so, I've been confronting the monsters, those very insecurities, pains and patterns stirred up by yesterday's news.  The stuff that keeps a gal up at night.  I feel myself gripping tightly to what I think is right, wanting to do everything so well that it's beyond criticism, wanting to manage circumstances and people and what those people think.  

I've been wary.  I've focused on the monster at the end of the book.  It is no mistake that I encountered this beloved book all these years later on such a discouraging day.  


Maybe the monsters are really not all that scary after all.  Certainly, there are scary and awful things in the world, but that's all the more reason not to fear the monsters that are not truly scary.  Maybe the monster is me.  That's certainly partly true, but it's not the entire story.  


In seeing the book, I'm reminded to relax and trust the Author, perhaps to even chuckle at my panic and futile security measures.  Maybe with the Author I can blow through some of these pages, the walls, the ropes, to get to a place that is clearly good.  Maybe I'll get to see reality with the Author's eyes.  


I am hopeful, though I still wrestle.  


And I take heart in one other little gem-of-a-message in the Grover book: