Last summer, Julia and I drove to Bryson City for her first club soccer team practice. At the time, it felt like a huge moment–our daughter was a rising freshman, but in our minds she was still very much a middle schooler. And now, suddenly, I was dropping her off at a field an entire county away so she could go try out for a team with a bunch of high school kids.
Those high school kids looked decidedly older.
My nerves, my word, my nerves. Every sense of athletic inadequacy in my body welled up to see her jog out onto the pitch and start passing the ball around. What on earth are we doing here? I wondered.