The Great One

14 Marbles
Skate to where the puck is going and not to where it's been.
Wayne Gretzsky

    When my home hockey team was is in the Stanley Cup Playoffs against Boston, they started falling apart in the fourth game. Although I’m not a huge hockey fan, I took the opportunity to engage in the games and bond with my son. In the fourth game they were losing two nothing and when they came back in the second period, you could tell they had lost heart. Every close up of a Boston player showed them with “the eye of the tiger,” every close up of my home team showed them with “the eye of the scared kitten.” They had already lost.  
    I don’t know why it is but some teams, like some couples, manage to pull together when the chips are against them. Others, like my home team and me and Ex-man, start unraveling.  It’s a hard thing to watch in sport, and it’s equally hard to watch in life.
    There is a hockey legend (Wayne Gretzky aka “The Great One”) who used to say that he was successful because he never focused on where the puck was but on where it was going. I think this winning strategy applies to relationships as well.  When I think of Ex-man, he is everything that I was, my youth, my dream of a nuclear family, “the boy next door”, but we never managed to skate together toward the puck, toward our future. We were the team that fell apart when the going got rough. 
    Some would say these marbles have been an unpacking of the thoughts and beliefs that created my past and my relationship with Ex-man.  As I get ready to pack my bags for my trip to New Orleans, I consider what I’d like to leave behind and what I’d like to take with me. I’ve already started packing more fun in my suitcase - literally. A friend of mine has lent me several of her Burning Man costumes to wear for Mardi Gras. As for dude from New Orleans, I like spending time with him. He’s one of my playmates, and although he may not be a forever type of guy (if there is such a thing), I think of another Gretzkyism, ““You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.”

Can you let go of where the pucks been and skate towards where the puck is going? What would it look like to take more shots at life? At family? At love? At career?