30 Reasons to Be Grateful at My Granddaughter’s Soccer Game

Let’s just say it out loud: I am not a confident driver or parker. So, when I survived a recent parking challenge, I was so overcome with gratitude that it colored every thought in my head. Here, then, are the 30 thoughts in my head:

1. I am grateful for having the courage to try to find a parking space at the elementary school where my eight-year-old granddaughter was playing her first soccer game of the season. The once spacious lot is now ravaged by construction as additions to the building are being made. This has turned parking into a stress test.
2. I am grateful for making it around that very-tight-curve where some extremely unthoughtful and unkind person left his/her car even though it blocked the flow of traffic for everyone else.
3. I am grateful that on the other side of that blockade I found a parking space because I wasn’t running the gauntlet again. I was just going to go home!
4. I am grateful for knowing that I should take a few deep breaths to calm down when I am stressed.
5. I am grateful for continuing to do the deep breathing until it worked and reminded me…
6. I am grateful that this school district has enough money to do extensive renovations even if it impairs parking.
7. And while we’re on the topic, grateful to live in a school district that often ranks well on various state and national lists.
8. And stepping back a bit further, grateful that all my kids live in Cincinnati, and that all my grandkids have the good fortune of attending this fine school district.
9. I am grateful for being on good terms with my kids so that I am given the team schedule and welcome to show up.
10. I am grateful that I get along with my ex-husband, the Gramps of the group, because he might show up too.
11. As I get out of my car, I am grateful that even though the soccer fields are likewise in upheaval and not well-marked, my son-in-law, the coach, is tall enough to see, and so I know where to go.
12. I’m grateful for knowing exactly where to go because the weather app tells me it’s 85 degrees outside and feels like 97. Wandering in the desert might have worked for Moses, but it doesn’t work for me.
13. I’m grateful to have good enough knees, hips, and back to make it all the way over to the soccer field – schlepping a lawn chair.
14. Darn! I left the sun umbrella and water bottle in the car, but I am extremely grateful for what I’ve got – a hair elastic in the bottom of my purse that will allow me to pull my hair back!
15. I’m grateful to see my granddaughter, my Cookie, out there on the field, and grateful that she sees me too. (Perhaps this will buy me an extra visit at the nursing home when she and I are a lot older.)
16. Seeing my son-in-law on the field too, I am grateful that he is an involved dad. He has coached soccer teams for all three of his daughters, my grandgirls.
17. Seeing somebody else’s grandma on the sidelines with her shirt on inside-out, I am grateful it’s not me.
18. Back to that handsome son-in-law, I’m grateful that he has a job that allows him the flexibility to be a coach.
19. Grateful that he and the girls – and indeed all my kids and grandkids – have the good health to participate in extracurricular activities.
20. Grateful that my children and children-in-law work so hard to give their kids myriad opportunities like this.
21. Wait! Look what I see! My daughter – Cookie’s mom – is walking toward us! She is the #1 spectator I hoped would appear! I am grateful to see her – and the sun umbrella she is carrying.
22. I am grateful that I am the only grandparent in attendance, so I won’t have to share her with anyone.
23. Grateful to have the rest of the game to chat with her and to catch up on all the news that she might otherwise be too busy to tell me.
24. Grateful that none of the little red-faced soccer players passed out in the August heat. I promised my daughter that Cookie would be fine, and I am always glad to deliver on a promise.
25. Grateful that our team scored a couple of times, and grateful to understand that it doesn’t matter if you win or lose; it’s how you play the game.
26. Grateful for walking back to the car with my son-in-law and getting to hear the family news from his point of view.
27. Very grateful for getting back to my dependable car with dependable air conditioning that took me home to my likewise dependably air-conditioned home…
28. Where with immense gratitude, I guzzled lots of ice-cold water.
29. Feeling all better now, I am grateful that I was able to delete the expletive in talking about that person in item #2 above.
30. And I am grateful that I am able to see the bright side. Yes, I am a wimp about finding parking places, but look how strong I am in finding gratitude!

*****

Cookie has played soccer before. Read a blog I wrote about her game when she was four: Life Lessons from a Soccer Game. (It includes a mention of this famous book for kids.)