Some Friday-night lights and the #10 jersey.

I think the fifth-year of college should be called the "lost year." Cause that's how I feel right now. Freaking lost. College has pretty much ended but real life hasn't really begun. I'm caught in the middle. The space between...ya know? I'm not quite sure what the next step is, which is scary, confusing, and exciting all at the same time.

The question of "what am I going to do with my life?" is always lurking in the back of my brain. I know very well that I shouldn't be worried. But some important life-decisions need to be made soon. Let's just say I'm concerned, not worried. Very concerned :)

On top of all these life-changes that will be happening in the next year, something is missing. I knew this was coming. I also knew I couldn't be prepared, I just have to deal with it...

Last week. Friday night. Sitting in the stands at the UK women's soccer game. Watching the team walk across the field, exhausted, heads hanging in despair (because of tying a game they should have won). "The Rising" by Bruce Springsteen was playing on the speakers, (this song is played after every single home game and I can't get it out of my head). And that's when it finally hit me. Ten yards of green space and a fence is the closest I would ever get to being a college soccer player again.


I felt kinda sick to my stomach. This is what's missing. Something that I have been doing since I could walk. No wonder I'm so confused. It seems so stupid: kicking a round ball into a goal. But there's just something about it I guess.


I realize how ridiculous I sound right now. Give it up...right? Nope. If I were to go back in time and tell the 18 year old Kelsey that I was going to stop playing soccer at age 22, she would be freaking pissed. 'Why would you ever want to stop playing?' she would say. Great question, indeed. I miss it. I love it. I want to play again. And I will :)




"Sky of blackness and sorrow...Sky of love, sky of tears...Sky of glory and sadness...Sky of mercy, sky of fear...Sky of memory and shadow...Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight...Sky of longing and emptiness...Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life...Come on up for the rising...Come on up, lay your hands in mine...Come on up for the rising...Come on up for the rising tonight..."

S'mores over candle light.

So, I've been here in Lexington for over 4 years and I am finally starting to really appreciate it. I live on an amazing little street known as Woodland Avenue. Three of my roommates graduated and moved out, while three new people moved in. It is weird living with new people after 4 years...but it's also great because it brings in a whole new dynamic. Directly across the street, 6 of our good friends/teammates moved in. They have added something that is one of the main reasons that I am loving Woodland even more this year....

a PORCH.

Life-changing, for real.

A few nights a week, a bunch of us just sit out on that porch, people watching, talking , and strumming guitars. We often get into deep, meaningful conversations about Jesus and about life :) It has become one of my favorite places in Lexington. It has actually made me realize how much I am going to miss this place when I leave.

I know people say this all the time, but four years have gone by so incredibly fast. I am definitely not the same person. It's funny to think of who I was back then...an 18 year old coming to a new and unfamiliar place; A student that had to figure out how to balance classes and homework without driving myself crazy; A soccer player stepping into a program that would push me beyond my mental and physical limits; A girl meeting teammates that have become my best friends and family; Just a person searching for more.

And now...I bleed BLUE; I am 22 years old and Lexington has become home; I am 4 classes (which don't stress me out anymore) and less than a semester away from graduating; I am a retired college athlete that knows what it takes and misses the uniform; I am no longer part of a team but the current and past players are my family for life; I am still just a person but, somewhere between the soccer and school and friends, I have found what it means to be alive.

So I sit on this amazing porch thinking about all this stuff. It makes me want to cry a little bit. But then I look around at the homeless person digging through the trash, and the people going out, and the cars going by. And then I look even closer at the people I'm sitting with. Some faces that I've known for 4 years, and others for only less than a year. These are the people that have gone through arguably the most challenging four years of life with me, and I with them. As my roomie roasts me a marshmallow over the tiny candle flame, I realize how much I love life and how much I appreciate the people God has put in mine.

I would like to travel back in time, as I am now, to ask that naive 18 year old 'me' what she thinks of who I have become now. There is still much growing/learning/changing to be done and I want the person that I have become now to be proud of the person I am yet to be, years from now.

It hasn't been easy. It never is, right? There are some things I regret but, mostly, I look back and smile. It's just another season of life. Stepping out of the house and onto the porch. Eventually I have to step off that porch and find a new path. There are so many paths and it's a bit confusing. So, for now, I think I will stay right here on the porch.

"Omaha, somewhere in middle America..."

I went on a spontaneous cross-country road trip with one of my friends last week. It was 25 hours of pure beauty from Los Angeles to Omaha. Between blaring music from the itrip and conversations about life, we stared out the windows to soak in the most beautiful natural canvas we had ever seen. And God was constantly re-painting the picture.

I tend to get really distracted and caught up in all the craziness going on around me. I am always going a hundred miles an hour. I think this can be a good thing. But it can also be a very bad thing when the business starts to get in the way of things that matter. I like how Anthony DeMello explains it in The Way to Love, " Look at your life and see how you have filled its emptiness with people. As a result they have a stranglehold on you. See how they control your behavior by their approval and disapproval. they hold the power to ease your loneliness with their company, to send your spirits soaring with their praise, to bring you down to the depths with their criticism and rejection. Take a look at yourself spending almost every waking moment of your day placating and pleasing people, whether they are living or dead. You live by their norms, conform to their standards, seek their company, desire their love, dread their ridicule, long for their applause, meekly submit to the guilt they lay upon you; you are terrified to go against the fashion in the way you dress or speak or act or even think. And observe how even when you control them you depend on them and are enslaved by them. People have become so much a part of your being that you cannot even imagine living a life that is unaffected or uncontrolled by them."

I have an imaginary box on my desk. Inside this box I have placed God. Or at least God in the way I like to think of him: I can take Him with me when I choose or leave Him sitting there when I would rather He not be involved. Because of the standards and norms I have learned from my society, I consciously or unconsciously know when and where it is 'safe' to take Him out of this box.

During this road trip I think I finally realized that it is time to take God out of this box. Although, I know that He was never in it to begin with, it's just something my own control-craving human nature has created in order to make myself feel secure.

In the book Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller says (of his own road trip), "I've learned, too, that I don't really know very much about anything. I mean, I used to have all these theories about life. I thought I had everbody figured out, even God, but I don't. I think the woods, being away from all the clingy soot of commercialism, have taught me life is enormous, and I am very tiny in the middle of it...And yet the chemicals in my brain that make me feel beauty when I look up at the stars, when I watch the sunset, indicate I must be here for a reason."

I first thought about my 'nothingness' when we hit Utah. Wow. That's pretty much the only way to describe it. Hours and hours of the most beautiful rust-striped mountains. Zero civilization, except for us and the few cars that would pass and do a double-take to witness the insane amount of stuff we had packed into the tiny car. For a while I actually had myself convinced that I wanted to move out there into a little shack for the rest of my life. How peaceful that would be. But then I realized that I love being around people...dang it. :) And then came Colorado and Nebraska. We drove through the mountains and along the Colorado River for a while. That was great, but what I liked even more was 'the cloud.' There was this huge storm cloud right in front of us, almost like we were driving into it but could never actually get to it. So, for a good 5 hours we drove at this cloud and from it we watched lightening bolts light up the sky as it began to get darker and darker.

So I guess I finally had a chance to breathe. To get away from the people, away from the noise, and away from control. God is much cooler when I don't condense Him into a God of structure. When I realize how small I am and how big He is I also start to see how alive He is...in everything around me and in me. He is in the desert sand of Nevada and in the midst of Sin City. He is in the mountains of Utah. He is in the rivers of Colorado and the clouds of Nebraska. He is in the very world He created but, even more importantly, He is IN ME. Not in the box...IN US.

I like to think I have it all figured out and understood but God, much like the ever-changing scenery of my road trip, comes in many forms. There is always more. Which is why I know He is not out there but inside of me; it is something that can be experienced but not understood.

I know there is more to life than what we have created it to be. Our illusion is beginning to seem like reality. Sometimes it may only take a spontaneous road trip. For others, it may take more because of the deepness with which we believe the lies surrounding us.

It's time to get away from the noise and unattainable standards.

It's time to open the box and listen. Go.

"There is a serenity in life, after all, and once a withdrawl is felt at having left the lies behind, a SOUL BEGINS TO FEEL AT HOME in its own skin." -Donald Miller

To be ALIVE is to be broken

You want to know the one quality that I respect most in people? HONESTY.

During the past few months I have had some of the most real, honest conversations. People just can't take it anymore...all this "make up." You know? Everybody does it, to some extent. Putting up walls and putting on fake smiles so that, to the outside world, everything looks great. Afraid to be vulnerable because of wounds that have been reopened one too many times. As one friend put it, "there has to be more to life!" I say...indeed, there is.

It's so easy to become numb to our problems and to the world, trying to hide from all the brokenness. Which is one quality that puts me on edge...APATHY. It could be one of the most dangerous attitudes. When you don't care you don't feel. And when you don't feel you aren't alive...you are just living. Apathy is also the easy road. Shutting off our emotions is just a way of putting up walls so that we don't get hurt. It allows us to get through life...lifelessly. Like in the song Runaway Train by Soul Asylum..."Can you help me remember how to smile? Make it somehow all seem worthwhile? How on earth did I get so jaded? Life's mystery seems so faded..."

Honesty is scary but, you want to know what the best thing about honesty is? It keeps us ALIVE. I'm not talking about breathing lungs and a beating heart. I'm talking about giving meaning to life. When we are real with ourselves and with each other there is no room for "fakeness." When all our crap is out on the table it allows us to deal with it. Not alone...but with each other. Which also brings us closer to the people around us. We weren't put on this earth to 'figure it out' all alone. Amazingly, a lot of us are going through the same stuff. We all have a little bit of wisdom that we can share to help each other learn and change and grow.

It's OK to talk about stuff and ask the tough questions. I think our society is afraid of this because it allows others to see us as we really are. If we take off all the masks everyone can see everyone else's ugliness. I wish we would embrace our brokenness. It might be painful at times but, in the end, so much more real and joyful.

As Henri Nouwen, author of 'Life of the Beloved,' explains it, ""My own experience with anguish has been that facing it and living it through is the way to healing. But I cannot do that on my own. I need someone to keep me standing in it, to assure me that there is PEACE beyond the anguish, LIFE beyond death, and LOVE beyond fear. But I know now, at least, that attempting to avoid, repress, or escape the pain is like cutting off a limb that could be healed with proper attention. The deep truth is that our human suffering need not be an obstacle to the joy and peace we so desire, but can become, instead, the means to it. The great secret of the spiritual life, the life of the Beloved sons/daughters of God, is that everything we live, be it gladness or sadness, joy or pain, health or illness, can all be part of the journey toward the full realization of our humanity."

So...suffering leads to joy. It allows us to realize, not only that we are broken, but that there is more to life. Much more, indeed. Jesus didn't come just to tell us about heaven. He came to show us how to LIVE. How to be ALIVE...NOW.

We are all broken and this world is dying. There is another path. The wounds can be healed. Be honest with yourself. Follow the light. It's scary but you'll find that, when you reach that light, you will never look back. It will soon be frightening to imagine life without this light. What this world needs is broken people who have COME ALIVE...



"In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." -John 1:4-5

Believe.

Since becoming a coach last spring, I have learned quite a bit. I am used to being the athlete but now I get to be a part of a team from an entirely new perspective. Right now, I'm trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible from other coaches that I respect. I am constantly asking questions, learning how other people coach and manage their teams, and I pick up bits and pieces from each coach I talk to. I think we all define 'success' in different ways and I also don't think there is one 'key' to attaining it.

My dad is also a soccer coach. I was just asking him about this past season and what he focused on. We talked about a bunch of stuff and he gave me a lot of good coaching 'gems' (as he likes to call them, haha)...just things he has learned over the years. We both agreed that EVERY SINGLE DAY that we coach we learn something new.

The one thing that we talked about that, I would say, is the single most important thing in creating a 'successful' team is getting them to BELIEVE in what I am trying to do. In order for this to happen, I need to believe in what I'm trying to do.

I started coaching a U16 team last spring. After the first tryout, I didn't want to do it. I tried to quit, haha, but the club owner wouldn't let me. I didn't think I could do it. I didn't believe. This, clearly, was not a good attitude. How can I expect my team to follow if I don't even know where I'm going? Someone recently told me, "You must let your 'yes' be yes and your 'no' be no. TRUST YOURSELF." (Now, I eventually had more confidence in what I was doing as the season went on- so I wasn't quite this drastically unsure of myself).

Let me first talk about my version of 'success.' A lot of coaches just want to win. Obviously, that's the ultimate goal but I believe that there are more important things. I don't talk to my teams about winning, (ok, maybe I did a few times haha, but it won't happen again). I talk to them about hard work. I told them about a hundred times this season that "nothing replaces hard work." Walking off the field- whether its practice or a game- with absolutely nothing left because you gave 100% effort. THAT is my version of success. I set an impossibly high standard of this success knowing full-well that they will never achieve it. Why? Because you can always work harder, so it's never ending. But I do this in order to push them so that they have to dig deeper than they even thought possible. Success is not walking off the field with a win...success is walking off the field empty, because you left it all out there.

Ok...so how do I get my teams to do this? How do I get them to believe in me and what I'm trying to do?

They don't have to like me...they just have to respect me. It's my job to push them mentally, emotionally, and physically...so much that it's going to be painful at times. They need to be challenged like this at each and every practice so that when they get to the games, its almost easy. While challenging them in this way, I also want to be giving them confidence and encouragement. I need to get them to be passionate, intense, and competitive in a way that is loving, compassionate, and respectful. I think John Wooden put it best, "The greatest strength is in gentleness." Unfortunately, this balance is a lot easier said than done. I'm only human and sports bring out emotions like anger and pride, so it's hard to be patient and understanding. But it's also necessary. When you treat people in a challenging yet respectful way, they start to respond and trust and follow your lead.

Now, I obviously want them to believe in me. This past season I found that their belief in me was initiated in my belief in them. It was amazing what happened just because I BELIEVED IN THEM.

Winning is how the world defines success. I define success with my heart: Did we give it everything we could? How can we get better? I can teach my teams all the skills and all the tactics there are to teach. But with a little patience and trust and confidence and BELIEF in those I'm leading...they start to follow.

Party in my mouth.

I can't think of too many things that are more amazing than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Pure joy for my taste buds. People will argue many different ways to create a PB&J. I, however, am the Yoda of this simple yet glorious sandwich. Just to clear up some confusion: 1. you must use wheat bread, 2. you must use strawberry jelly, 3. any peanut butter will do, but you must use at least twice as much peanut butter as jelly...peanut butter is the star, you have to let him shine. :)

I now appreciate PB&J in a whole new way because I ate it every single day during my 3-week trip to Los Angeles. I had the privilege of enjoying this meal for 21 days with some of the most amazing people I have ever met. So, now, every time I eat a PB&J it takes me right back to sitting around a table with my new brothers and sisters, surrounded by a love and community that I miss more and more each day.

I would also like to take the time to mention one of the greatest inventions known to man. It, like PB&J, is a sandwich...on a whole new level.

Diddy Reise's. Better known as "Diddy's."

Wow. The name just makes my mouth water.

Diddy's is an ice cream place in L.A. It is a small business, with a line going out the door and down the block. You get to choose two homemade cookies, they can be the same or different. You then choose an ice cream flavor. The Diddy's experts place the scoop of ice cream between the two cookies...making a beautiful sandwich. And it's only $1.50! Absolute brilliance.

During my first experience at Diddy's I had, not one, but TWO of these masterpieces. Yeah, no worries...I can throw down. We then proceeded to eat Diddy's 4 or 5 more times during the last week.

One night at 11:42pm a craving for Diddy's overtook a few of us. Now, Diddy's closes at midnight and on a normal drive it takes about 20 minutes to get there. Nothing was going to stop us. We jumped in someone's car and risked our lives on the highways of California to make it to Diddy's in EIGHT minutes...getting there in plenty of time to order and fulfill our need.

Peanut butter and jelly. Diddy Reise's. My amazing sisters.

Sounds like heaven to me :)

My little bro.

I am an athlete. This doesn't define me and it's not who I am but it is a part of me.

Something is missing. Summer seems kind of weird right now. I'm used to setting my alarm clock every morning to go running, lift weights, and play soccer, preparing for the upcoming season. I'm used to feeling the pressure of having to get my body into the best shape of my life in order to pass fitness tests and earn a spot on my team. I'm used to having the excitement building up as August approaches, eager to play against some of the best competition in the country.

All of this is gone. I don't have a team anymore. I don't have a 'season' to prepare for. I miss the burning in my lungs as I finish the last shuttle in a sprint-workout. I miss my jeans being too tight because of all the power cleans and squats. I miss setting distant, seemingly impossible goals like winning a conference championship...and then achieving them. :)

As I said...I am an athlete. This doesn't define me, but the pain and privilege of being a college athlete has come and gone. Not many people can say that they survived 4 years of a college sport. It has been the hardest and, at the same time, most enjoyable thing I have ever done. It breaks you down until you have nothing left...but you must find more.

The cool thing about this, however, is that I get to see new people enter into a lifestyle that I am now leaving. One of these people is my little brother, Aidan. He is going to be a senior in high school. He has started looking at schools where he can play college soccer. He has seen me go through the ups and downs (some of those downs were rough, haha) of college soccer, which I think makes him a bit apprehensive. I, of course, am in full support of him playing college soccer. I explain to him that it's not easy but that it will teach him valuable things about himself and about life, in a setting that will force him to dig deeper and deeper, finding more than he ever thought possible. It's not just about those Friday night games in front of thousands of people. It's about having enough courage to sacrifice many things to do all the lifting, running, and training that is required to prepare for those games. Hopefully I haven't scared him too much :)

Anyway....I would like to give a little shout-out to my bro right now. As he looks ahead to playing college soccer in a year, he surely can't overlook this upcoming week. His club team, Everest, won the US Youth Regional Championship. They beat one of the best teams in the country, from Missouri, in a shootout, to win the championship. Unfortunately, I was not at the game but I was on the phone with my mom when they won....screaming and jumping up and down on a street in Los Angeles, (if anyone was watching they definitely thought I was nuts).

Next week they travel to Arkansas for the National Championship. I am not missing this one! My brother is a center midfielder on one of the top 4 boys U17 teams in the COUNTRY. Dang! That is just so cool and I am really proud of him. He likes to give me a hard time asking, "Hey Kels, have you ever won Regionals?" Knowing full-well that no, I haven't. So I like to joke back, "Hey Aidan, have you ever won an SEC Championship as an underdog, beating one of the best teams in the country?" All in good fun, though, haha.

So as I sit here feeling bad for myself that the 'glory days' are over, I now get to see my brother achieve something that millions of kids can only dream of. I get to see my brother train everyday in preparation for Nationals. I get to see my brother face the toughest competition he has ever faced. I get to see my brother go out onto a stage where he will have to dig deeper than he ever has.

I am still an athlete. Now I get to learn all kinds of new lessons from watching rather than running and lifting :)

GO AIDAN!