Last week we went off to the Midwest. We landed on Monday evening and JR asks “do they speak English here?” My kids couldn’t be more confused by all our travels the last six weeks all over the globe. Much to his relief, Michigan people speak English. Now on East Coast time zone did not help our jet lag. Luckily we had an extra day to sleep in. My kiddos did not want to get up in the morning. Nor did I. My body needed some sleep.
Grateful for Midwest friends that we don't get to see that often. There aren’t that many tournaments in that area but excited to be back in Midwest for APP Chicago in August, too.
It has been a very long six weeks of a lot of pickleball and travel. I hadn’t really let it sink in, because I didn’t allow for time to think about it and pushed through, but now I had a minute to breathe and it came rushing at me. Drained. Depleted. Exhausted.
Let me share more insight.
Sometimes, only once I take a minute and let myself reflect, do I realize that I need to take more down time but it’s hard. I feel passionate about pickleball and want to play as much as the schedule allows and then want to be part of all these other projects of growing the game. I want to create opportunities for others. I want to provide opportunities for my family. If I say 'no' now, will I get another opportunity later - who knows? I don’t know. I’m truly blessed and grateful for it all. I’m not challenged by anything that I can’t do, but Thursday afternoon I was called to rest. My great friend, Scott from Athletes in Action told me about some piglets that had just been born two days ago, so this was a great excuse to escape pickleball and “let the kids see the piglets” (even though I really wanted to see them just as much).By no surprise I found myself sitting in a hammock on a farm in Michigan surrounded by farm animals, talking to Jared Franklin and allowing myself to reflect and breathe and getting nudged by a free-roaming pig, a muddy pig that found my feet and my handbag rather fascinating. It was wonderful. It was exactly what I needed. Fresh air. Nature. Animals. Reminded of the beauties of life.
Free-roaming pig named Stan!
It was time to make plans to get home. My mom has stepped into the role in our family to help us book our travel. It’s been so much lately with international and domestic travel that Ryler and I have gotten overwhelmed. Mama Fudge comes to the rescue. Quick WhatsApp message and she’s on the laptop in Germany making arrangements for us to finally get back to Florida. Back to our RV.
Final leg back to Florida
A lot of people ask us where home is and the answer is: home is where the RV is parked. Before we left for Asia we handed in our RV to SpeedPro for a Franklin project. It’s done and it looks amazing. Pictures and video reveals in August so stay tuned! Finally getting back to the RV was such a feeling of comfort.
Best definition I could find for home fits perfectly for me: Home (noun) - “A place that feels like a tight hug: where time stands still for just a moment, where the noise of the outside world is blocked out and where you can breathe it all out after being tense all day. From the moment you enter the door, you are safe, you are warm, and you are exceptionally loved.”
We came “home” last night. Stepping foot into our RV, wherever it is parked, is home for us. It’s ours. It’s our hug. It’s our place we feel safest and feel most familiar. Our RV can be parked anywhere, but it’s home.
We’ve got 21 days before the next competition so plans are being made for training with my coach, DK. We’ve got a quick trip to Dubai planned to announce something exciting but I’ll share more of that next week.
Comments