the importance of being a cheerleader

When I was in high school, I was an athlete. I played football with the neighborhood boys on the weekends, was on the varsity basketball team, went to State for diving on the swim team, ran track, jumped hurdles, played volleyball, soccer and tennis...I loved playing sports, especially basketball. Coming from a big school, we always had cheerleaders at our games. Some of my closest friends were high school cheerleaders. I was fascinated by them. The way they could commandeer a crowd was powerful. The way they could change the energy of the whole gymnasium when you were down by ten with two minutes left in the game was intoxicating. The way that they could manipulate the feelings from hopelessness to optimism in a single chant was magical. They were the backbone of our success at any given moment...just by being there. Just by having our back. Just by their unconditional support. They taught me a lot throughout the years, many lessons not really cementing in my mind until the last decade or so.

But the process started in small ways even before that. Twenty-three years ago, to be exact. When I was holding my first born son, I made a vow to be his biggest fan. And the two little one's that came after him, I made that same promise. This was new territory for me because I never quite felt that fully for myself except when I was in high school playing sports. That someone had my back, even for a fleeting moment. That someone was 100% loyal, physically and emotionally, and had my best interests at heart.

You have probably been in my shoes at one point or another...having moments in your life where you were supported, encouraged, and loved. Or having moments where you felt supported, encouraged and loved...only to see through different eyes that actually it wasn't that at all. It was often lopsided, this kind of love. Giving more than you get, taking more than you give. We have all been there. It's sometimes heartbreaking to look back on it...to relive how stuck you once felt. How you saw no way out of the suffocation, the darkness, the feeling of not being able to breathe. Having the realization that maybe you don't know what you're doing. Maybe you don't have it all together. Maybe you have it all wrong. Now what?

Now what?

How do you start to unpack your suitcase and pick and choose what is actually yours and worth keeping versus what belongs to someone else and is no longer needed? How do you go about creating something in your own life that you have never fully experienced? How do you go about changing generations of parenting influences that have lived inside of you for years? How do you shift from unlearning lifelong patterns and creating new ones for your future?

You become a cheerleader.

To be honest, I never fully experienced this until a little while back. I had walked into a conversation that was not intended for me to hear. They didn't even know I was around. But what I heard made me change my perspective on what it really means for someone to be your biggest fan. What they say when they think you can't hear them. When you weren't supposed to hear them in the first place...when they think you will never find out. What they say when they think nobody else is listening.

It doesn't matter exactly what was said, because it has happened countless times after that day and has shifted into how I think and act Not in a small, undefinable way, but in a 'this is how I will carve out every important relationship moving forward' kind of way.

This is the good stuff. This is the stuff great relationships are made of. This is who I want to be.

I want to be a cheerleader.

I want to shift the mood of my family by my presence. I want to create optimism within my children and partner when circumstances feel hopeless. I want to be the backbone of their success.

I want to be their cheerleader.

I want my children to know that I will never mutter a negative thing about them behind their back. I won't gossip about them, put them down or create stories that benefit me over them depending on the situation. I won't put them in harmful situations with my parenting that benefit me in the moment. I won't use them to get back at someone else. They are completely safe with me and they will know this in every action I take.

I want my partner to know that I am his biggest fan. I want him to feel that in my actions and in my words, whether he hears me or not. I want everyone to know how much of a hard worker he is, what an amazing father he is, and how patient and kind he is. I want everyone to know that he lives to make us happy and is in service to that everyday. And how he makes it easy to do the same for him.

This is what he taught me the day I walked into a conversation he was having that I wasn't supposed to hear. This is what started this endless devotion to be his biggest cheerleader in life. That is all it took.

And sometimes...it is that easy.