When I was thirteen-years-old, my basketball coach used to have us start every practice with the same warm-up activity: dribbling. We were expected to arrive at practice 15 minutes before start time, and as soon as our basketball shoes were on, we grabbed our basketball from the bin and began the routine: starting with the crossover dribble, moving to the behind-the-back crossover (my personal fav) then to between-the-legs crossover. Repeat. It probably took us all a few months of clumsiness and awkward movements, but soon enough, we were dribbling the ball across the court in all different ways as if we have been doing it our entire lives. We could hold full conversations, walk across the court, and still rarely mess up.
I played basketball all through middle and highschool, but once high school was over, and I moved on to post-secondary education, it was years before I even came in contact with a basketball.
But I will never forget the moment in 2020, six months pregnant with my third child, when I was out at the park with my other two littles. Right there on the pavement, old and worn and definitely a bit deflated, an old basketball was lying against the fence. Instinctively, I walked over, grabbed it with my hands, started spinning it around on my finger, started bouncing slowly, then started moving my body as I continued dribbling. And then without even thinking about it I picked up speed, dribbled the ball behind my back, then under my leg, then the grand finale of a layup right into the basketball hoop.
I looked around for a witness, someone to be impressed that after fifteen years and two pregnancies, my hands and body still knew exactly what to do. There was no one within sight but my two three-year-olds, and they didn’t notice, nor would they have really cared. My dribbling display didn’t look as smooth as it used to, certainly. But as soon as I saw that free basketball on the court, my body knew it, as if it was telling me, you’ve done this before, Sonya, you can do it again. Muscle memory, just like our other memories, can be a very powerful tool.
Right now I am training hard at the CrossFit gym I attend. I want to get back to competing in some form, and this is probably the first time I have dedicated time to my fitness since becoming a Mom. If you aren’t familiar with my CrossFit journey, I joined a gym in 2013 and have never looked back. What started as a way for me to workout in a competitive environment with my husband, turned into a place that I will forever credit for helping me through one of the most challenging seasons of my life. Stress and anxiety drove me to move my body, and moving my body, without a doubt, helped metabolize the pain. In the process, I competed in over 15 competitions over the course of 4 years.
Then when Jayce was born, and I was pregnant with Everly, I took a break from competing and working out at that level, and just tried to move my body when I could. When Everly was one-years-old, I slowly started getting back into it. I was finally feeling like myself again and just as I was finding my stride, I found out I was pregnant with Remy. The icing on the cake was during those 9 months of pregnancy, I was also living through a global pandemic which meant no access to a fitness facility (or any facility) for a very long time.
This past year has felt like the most “normal” I’ve experienced in a very long time. I committed to making time for myself at the gym, and started back training (very casually I might add). As the year flew by (as it tends to do), I am finding myself in a position where I am feeling stronger, and more confident than I have in a long time. Last weekend during a weekend training session at the gym, when I was trying to perform a lift at a weight that I used to be able to do without much effort, my arms felt done (and my confidence was at an all-time low). I kept reminding myself to stop comparing myself to the 2015 version of Sonya, and to appreciate all my body can currently do for me in this season. I thought back to the several hundred workouts I completed this past year. Sure, I was nowhere near lifting the weight I used to, or didn’t have the endurance I once had, but I still worked hard and made small improvements along the way. I have done this before. I remember what a challenge feels like.
And that’s what I started telling myself.
Because that’s how I know I can do it again.
In some miraculous way, I think all of my life has been like this. Nearly every “first” was prefaced by something I could draw on to prove to me I was ready. Of course you cannot duplicate everything in life: the first time you travel by yourself, the first big fight with your spouse, the first few weeks of sleepless nights with a newborn, or the first time you walk through a life-altering experience with your child.
I haven’t had three children before. I haven’t had school-aged children. I don’t have years of experience fighting hard for the family I dreamed of. We certainly can’t always say “we’ve done this before.”
But we can say we know what a challenge feels like. We’ve put in some reps of hard work in this life, because life demands that from us. And that, friends, is a really good thing.
I mean, look what you’ve made it through. Look where grace has carried you.
Just this week, as our gym announced a summer fitness challenge that would include extra workouts at the gym, extra miles on the running paths, and nutrition challenges to stay on top of, Drew casually mentions to me, “You up for it?”
My eyes got very wide, because I know how hard I will have to work and how organized I will need to be in the next couple of months to participate in such a challenge (on top of all the other things life throws my way as a busy mom of 3).
But I’m saying yes, not because it will be easy, or pretty, or impressive to anyone watching. I’m saying yes because I remember.
And it’s all just got me thinking, isn’t it amazing how every experience in our life is there to prepare us for the rest of our life?