I had no one to turn to. I was the one. There was no magic helmet, bro by my side, or instant timeout. I was brave though and had well-honed catching and fleeing skills, (and nerves of stupidity). My specialty was the fair catch. A fair catch is when the other team turns the ball over by kicking it to you, and then a player on the other side tries to catch it and move it forward to the goal.

This happens while the eleven players on the other side barrel at you aiming for your head, while you watch the sky for the ball. If they get too close (you can feel the ground shake), you hold up a hand, catch the ball, and they back off. Kind of like a safe word for team sports.

But I had one rule. No fair catch. This had two outcomes. Either we gained. Or I lost. Badly. So in my case, it was more often a fairly certain death catch.

It was night, the lights were bright. As usual that year, we were behind. The field was lit green, the opposing jerseys blue. It was like a sea of glassy glare coming at me, while I tracked what looked like a small asteroid turd hurtling earthward.

Photo by Gwendolyn Kwong on Unsplash

The kick was high and I knew they would be on top of me quickly. I gathered the ball as the wave broke on me like a rowboat on the rocks. It took a few minutes to disentangle the wreckage. The wave receded.

I had the ball, but no yards were gained.​​ I also lost my helmet and gained a mild concussion, which knocked some sense into me.

Here’s the takeaway.

Even when I failed, I won. It’s easy to fall, another to get up and fall again. What I gained was the admiration of friends, family, team, and mostly myself. Resilience is a muscle that springs you forward from failure and loss into new ideas and ways of doing things.

I had the ball in hand, but no yards gained.​​ I lost my helmet and gained a mild concussion, which knocked some sense into me.

Even when I failed, I sort of won.

I bounced back up and returned three more punts, thankfully I had better results each time. The last time I scored. Resilience is open-ended, you may go in knowing you’ll get the crap knocked out of you repeatedly, and may never win.

But you don’t quit, resilience is the essence of relentlessness.
It is your mettle muscle!

Some things that night are still legend. One was that I caught the ball. The other that I got up at all. But most of all I kept coming back for more.

They still show the film. Seven tacklers played a dummy with me on that punt. I think they use it to teach players when to raise their hands. I’ve watched those blue jerseys flatten me repeatedly, in school, on the job, in relationships, and in parenting.

I am still learning that progress is more than a forward pass. It’s a season-long commitment. You have to be willing to give everything. And when the punting team gets pushy, stand like a rock. Here are some ways resilience boosted me.

• Made it through school with one good ear and a speech impediment.
• Survived a bad divorce and sprang into 28 years of something much better.
• Drove back broke 2000 miles without brakes to go to school.
• Interned full-time at a museum doing a dual master’s degree program while caring for a 2 and 3-year-old.
• Gained six degrees so I could do as much as I could ( I use all of them).
• Lost 40 pounds, twice, then ran half marathons on arthritic legs.
• Going back and forth with dyslexia.
• Got my Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction at 43.
• Found amazement at how much our grandchildren are like us.