Work In Progress

I was at my son's baseball game last night, explaining to The Spouse how I had compared adding up negative experiences to adding bricks to a backpack and then wondering why you can't perform your best.  Before I finished my story, he said, "Yeah, like George Clooney."   "What?" "Up in the Air...." "Sorry.....WHAT?" "The movie!  Clooney's character talks about that." "WHAT!  I wrote about it yesterday in my blog! I haven't even SEEN the movie!!" "Plagarist." "WHAT!!" So apparently, I am not as creative nor as brilliant as I thought.....(it is not the same thing exactly....so I am still taking credit for good parenting!  He wouldn't get the adult version.  I do.....ugh...but he wouldn't.  He would cry if we lit his backpack full of video games on fire.) I have been thinking about this backpack thing though as I watched the kids play...

My nine year old son is playing recreational baseball for his second summer in a row.   I watch his games with both joy and trepidation; sending a prayer up to whoever is the patron saint of baseball (apparently Rita of Cascia according to Wikipedia ) whenever my youngest steps up to the mound,  into the batter's box or crouches behind home plate to catch.   His emotions are easy to read.  Each outside pitch..... each giant "woosh" of the bat or ball lost behind the umpire.... is reflected in his posture.  First his head drops.  Then his shoulders slump.  He winces as his brain rapid fires words like "loser", "idiot", "stupid", "no good" at his raw ego.  Each negative thought manifests itself as a physical weight on his shoulders, only making it harder for him to perform.  Each poor performance supported his mistaken belief that he was a lousy ball player.  He was fueling his own spiral, that I watch get deeper and deeper...